UTC Mocs believing 'defense is fun'

Zaccheus Mason clearly is new to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's basketball team.

He traded football cleats at Ole Miss for the latest Nike basketball shoes at UTC this past summer. And he has brought something new to the Mocs -- a rare perspective.

Mason said something Thursday night after they beat Wofford 51-48 that no other UTC player coached by John Shulman has ever said in public.

"Playing defense is fun," he said.

Mason repeated that Friday before the Mocs began preparing for their Southern Conference game at Samford this afternoon at 3 EST.

"It's definitely fun, especially in situations like last night when we needed stops," Mason said. "We played pretty good defense as a team. Defense fuels our offense; we can run, and it can give our offense momentum."

The notion seems to be absurd.

"I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that," redshirt junior Dontay Hampton said. "The crazy thing is that we're playing bad on offense and still getting wins."

UTC (9-9, 3-2) has won its last three games -- all SoCon contests -- and has won five straight games against teams from leagues that get one bid to the NCAA tournament.

"They have that taste of success and want to keep that success," Shulman said. "I'm glad that they think playing defense is fun.

"Maybe they like having success enough to where they understand that we have to continue to defend. Winning is so much fun that guys are willing to do anything to win."

Playing offense is what's usually fun for basketball players. That's where they dictate the action. They can set a knock-down screen, make a nice pass, spin around for a post move, toss an alley-oop or bury a 3 -- making the opponent look inferior.

Offense is about doing what you want and when you want to do it. Playing defense is reacting to the opponent.

Yet the Mocs have limited their last three foes to 35.9 percent shooting from the floor, 28.1 percent from beyond the 3-point arc, and out-rebounded them by an average of 13.6 per game.

"I think our guys see a direct correlation between defending and winning, which is fun," Shulman said. "There's some sort of mathematical theorem about it."

Shulman couldn't define how the defensive numbers are so stout. But he'll take them because it's been on that end of the floor that UTC has won three straight SoCon games and is a half-game out of the North Division lead.

"The last two years we haven't been as successful on defense," senior point guard Keegan Bell said. "We're believing in it because the last two games we haven't played well on offense, but we won and that's because of the defense."

UTC will need another solid defensive performance today to beat Samford and its somewhat pepped-up Princeton-style offense.

"They're playing faster on the break and they're doing a nice job on the glass," Shulman said of the Bulldogs. "They're doing the same things they've always done, but just a little bit faster."

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