Randy Smith
Most people know about my long association with UTC. I've covered the Mocs since 1975, done more than 100 of their games on television and hosted their football and basketball coaches shows for more than a decade. Being the lead announcer for the Southern Conference Tournament telecasts for 23 straight years gave me the opportunity to witness first hand the many league titles they won.Now that I'm retired I am a season ticket holder for Mocs basketball games. That allows me to ask the question, what happened to the Mocs over the last month or so of the season?
The team that consisted of basically the same players that won 29 games and cruised to the Southern Conference Championship a year ago, folded like a wet towel and lost eight of their final 12 games. It wasn't a rash of injuries or player defections that caused the Mocs to play so poorly and it wasn't a lot of close losses that would cause them to hang their heads. In a lot of cases, they were embarrassed by double-digit losses.
When the Mocs were manhandled by VMI 80-64 at McKenzie Arena onJanuary 21st, I could sense there was something very wrong. The team chemistry that was so good in 2016-17 and so good when the Mocs defeated Tennessee 82-69 earlier this season had absolutely disappeared. I had commented to "Voice of the Mocs" Jim Reynolds about how much fun this team was to watch. He agreed, but within a few days the tables had turned and to watch the Mocs play was becoming a lesson in agony and total frustration.
UTC finished 19-12, with a first round exit in the SoCon Tournament this past weekend. There will be no post season appearance for the 2017 Mocs and now Coach Matt McCall is faced with a major rebuilding process as he loses six seniors from this year's squad.So, what happened? How did this team suffer perhaps the greatest collapse in school history?
I'm certainly not ready to blame Coach McCall for anything. He proved he could coach a year ago, but as a young coach he may not know how to handle his team very well when they hit the skids. Also, no one is hurting any moreright now than he is. You could see the sense of frustration on his face at every post game press conference. He reportedly even lashed out at a member of the media for reporting about an alleged fight between two of the Mocs senior players following a double-digit home loss to East Tennessee. If that reporter reported on speculation rather than facts, Coach McCall had every right to call him out.That little altercation shined a huge spotlight on the total frustration of everyone involved in the program....from the players all the way down to the media.
Believe me when I say, no one wanted things to end up this way. But no one could do anything to stop it when things really began to head south.In this day and age of "fake news" and "alternativefacts", the word transparency takes on a whole new meaning. People who are shareholders in your program deserve to know what happened.
School officials down to the boosters and season ticket holders are left bewildered and searching for answers. It's time for someone to step up and offer an explanation, A truthful accounting of the Mocs great collapse could prove to be beneficial down the road.
Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer. His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for 30 years. He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga television for more than a quarter-century. In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith. They have five grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, Mattingly, DellaMae, and CoraLee.