University of North Carolina Athletics
Know Your Opponent: Chattanooga
November 13, 2016 | Men's Basketball
Chattanooga (GoMocs.com)
Location: Chattanooga, Tenn.
Rankings: UTC - No. 82 KenPom, NR AP; UNC - No. 4 KenPom, No. 6 AP
Records: UTC - 1-0; UNC - 1-0
Carolina Series History (Last Meeting): Carolina leads 4-0 (UNC 68, UTC 38, Dec. 5, 1997, Charlotte Coliseum)
Let's get one thing out of the way up front. Chattanooga is good. Not cute-mid-major-with-one-good-player-hanging-around-for-20-minutes good. More like future-NCAA-first-round-nightmare-that-can-absolutely-beat-you good. The Mocs, who beat Georgia, Illinois and Dayton away from home last year, opened 2016-17 with a rousing 82-69 win at Tennessee on Friday night.
In his second year at the helm, Matt McCall has taken over a strong program and lifted it to the top of the Southern Conference. Former head coach Will Wade led the Mocs to a regular season SoCon title in 2015 before departing for VCU, and McCall's first season in charge was a record-breaker. UTC won a program-best 29 games and earned a No. 12 seed in the NCAA tournament, where they fell to Indiana in the opening round.
This year's edition features an all-senior starting five, led by preseason SoCon Player of the Year Tre' McLean. McLean and Justin Tuoyo combined for 43 points and 21 rebounds in the win at Tennessee, while Friday also featured the return of Casey Jones. Jones missed the final 27 games of 2016 and received a medical redshirt after an ankle injury ended his season.
Defensively, UTC put the clamps on Tennessee Friday night, limiting the Vols to 0.91 points per possession and a 33.6 percent effective field goal percentage, aided in large part by UT's 1-16 performance from deep. Carolina should have an advantage on the boards, however, as the Mocs feature just two players taller than 6-5 (Tuoyo and sophomore Makinde London).
