Mocs set as SoCon resumes

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The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga?s march to March hits full stride Wednesday.

The Mocs (8-6, 0-1) will play their first of 17 straight Southern Conference games beginning at Georgia Southern in their only scheduled matchup with the Eagles (3-12, 0-2) this season.

?The SoCon season begins and that determines what happens in March,? junior center Jeremy Saffore said. ?That determines if we get a bye in the (SoCon) tournament.?

The youthful Mocs have played one SoCon game this year, an 82-63 humbling loss at home to Elon on Dec. 5.

?We?d never been into a conference game together so it was good to do it once,? sophomore point guard Keegan Bell said. ?It was a wake-up call that showed we had to get better.?

In a sense, the Mocs are fortunate that they had only one SoCon game before the holiday break. All other schools have played at least twice within the league and some schools three times.

An extra early SoCon game would have been challenging for UTC, which was without a suspended Ty Patterson and a handful of injured players for much of the early part of the schedule.

?We probably caught a break, especially with what we?ve been through,? coach John Shulman said. ?If we would have played another one after Elon, I don?t know.

?This is a good time for us to be playing games because we?re in a positive frame of mind right now.?

The Mocs will pay for playing one early SoCon game with two stretches of three games in five days and four games within seven days to end the season.

?That?s OK, because we?re going to have enough depth,? Shulman said, ?and kids really enjoy limited practices.?

UTC will hold a 90-minute practice today before bussing to Statesboro, Ga., for a 7 p.m. tipoff against the Eagles, who beat UTC 78-74 last year in Hanner Fieldhouse.

?It?s tough to play down there,? Patterson said. ?They?re one of those teams ? they?re not bad, but they?re not good. We always struggle with them.?

 

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Eagles are ready for Mocs, fresh start


Forget about the 3-12 record. As far as the Georgia Southern Eagles are concerned, 2010 is a fresh start.

The Eagles (3-12, 0-2 Southern Conference) lost to Auburn 95-75 on Jan. 2, but more importantly, with the return of Antoine Johnson from a foot injury, they put everyone on the roster on the floor.

?We still feel good,? said Johnson. ?We had a tough schedule and hopefully it prepared us for this time of year. We feel we haven?t played our best basketball yet, but we know what we?re capable of doing.?

The biggest thing GSU needs to improve on, according to first-year coach Charlton Young, is defense. The Eagles are allowing 77.9 points per game on a 50.9-percent shooting clip.

Young hoped his team would be able to apply a full-court press as the season started, but realized his team is much better suited to set up defensively under the basket.

?Don?t guard the football field,? said Young. ?Early on I though we would be able to do that. They say it takes a year to learn your team. Last year they gave up 78 points and 48 percent (field-goal shooting per game) and we have not improved on that the way I thought we would this year. We?ve got to find the right way to defend. We?re giving up 50 percent field-goal shooting and you can?t win that way.?

The Eagles are 0-10 on the road this season and went 0-7 in December.

?We struggled last month to say the least,? said Young. ?More than we need a win, we also need to get home. We played seven of our last eight on the road with a very difficult schedule. It?s human nature to lose your confidence, but we finally have our whole team together.

?We?ve been trying to attack our deficiencies. Defensively, we?re not very good right now. We have to put together a good defensive effort if we want to get this win.?

The Eagles will play their first home Southern Conference game today at 7 p.m. against Chattanooga ? where Young spent 2004-05 as the associate head coach.

With a full roster on the floor, Young looks to start Willie Powers (13.5 ppg), Johntavious Rucker (35 steals), Antonio Hanson (11.7 ppg), Tyler Troupe and Sandy Perry against the Mocs (8-6, 0-1), although the bench is full of role players.

?Any of our guys could start,? said Young. ?Any of our guys coming off the bench ? (Ben) Drayton, (Johnson), Colby (Wohlleb) ? could easily be starters. We just have to buy into being a team that pushes tempo. We can get back to running, because we?ve got our bodies back.?

Now that the Eagles feel like they are entering into the ?second season? as Young calls it, with SoCon play kicking into full swing, each game will be crucial. The automatic bid from the league?s tournament is still up in the air, even for College of Charleston, who just knocked off No. 9 North Carolina 82-79 in overtime on Monday night.

?If they lose in the Southern Conference tournament, they go home, and that?s the bottom line,? Young said.

Chattanooga enters tonight?s matchup led by Ty Patterson, who has dropped 16 points per game for the Mocs.