UTC coach Will Wade watches the game against Hiwassee College at McKenzie Arena in this Nov. 12, 2014, photo.Saturday night, Tre McLean walked out of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga locker room after the Mocs' 69-67 loss to Tennessee Tech, and uttered a sentence that sums up the Mocs' early part of the season.
"I think we're going to be a really good team, based on the first half and most of the second half," he said.
"We just aren't there yet."
Against the Golden Eagles, there was a whole lot of Jekyll. They jumped out to a 43-26 halftime lead by shooting 52 percent from the floor and hitting 5-for-14 from 3-point range. Defensively, the Mocs limited Tech to 7-for-20 shooting, and if it hadn't been for 12 points and six rebounds in the first half from 6-foot-10 post Charles Jackson, the score at the break could have been worse because of 13 first-half turnovers forced by the visitors.
But as they were stretching out their lead, foul trouble -- a recurring theme so far -- was starting to mount. By the 15:35 mark of the second half, Casey Jones, Duke Ethridge and Justin Tuoyo had picked up their third fouls.
In addition to the foul trouble, Tech had switched to a smaller lineup, and although UTC head coach Will Wade has no problem going with a smaller lineup, he couldn't because Jones plays the "4" position in that rotation and was foul-riddled.
The UTC lead still swelled to 55-39 on a layup by Lance Stokes at the 12-minute mark, but Tech responded with a 14-2 run over 4:24 of the second half. During that stretch, UTC had five turnovers.
"Fouls caught up with us a little bit, but we played well for 34 minutes," Wade said. "We weren't as tough with the ball in the last six minutes. We turned the ball over way too much in the second half and just weren't tough with the ball. Our defense wasn't that tough; we gave up way too many drives."
Or, as McLean simply put, "They definitely out-toughed us down the stretch."
Of the Mocs' 11 second-half turnovers, seven came after they had built the 16-point lead. It led to them taking 15 fewer shots than the Golden Eagles, who shot 50 percent from the field and had offensive rebounds on nine of their 17 missed shots.
Still, for a vast majority of the game, the Mocs held a healthy advantage and had opportunities, and the game wasn't determined until Ronrico White's last-second shot missed. Although there is a fair share of negative to look at over the next couple of days prior to their Wednesday game against Robert Morris as part of the Battle 4 Atlantis mainland event, there is plenty of positive to build on, as when the Mocs were clicking, the "Chaos" system was fun to watch.
"We did some things pretty well for 34 minutes, but it is a 40-minute game," Wade said. "We have to do it possession-by-possession for 40 minutes -- they don't turn the clock off after 34 minutes.
"We had some makings of some really good things, but now is the time for us to put it all together. We put it together tonight, but it wasn't long enough."
Wednesday's tipoff is at noon at McKenzie Arena.
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.