UTC senior Drazen Zlovaric shakes hands with teammates as he returns to the court wearing a face mask during Thursday night's win against Furman. Zlovaric broke his nose in the first half.
photo by Dale Rutemeyer
On a night when a senior broke his nose and three true freshmen had a nose for the ball and a good eye on the basket (the team's top scorers), Chattanooga led wire-to-wire and defeated Furman, 83-49, Thursday night in a Southern Conference men's basketball game at McKenzie Arena before an announced crowd of 2,663.
Freshman starter Gee McGhee led all players with 16 points (6-10 from the field), followed by freshman reserves Eric Robertson (14 pts.) and Farad Cobb (12 pts., 6 assists, 2 steals).
Broken Nose: UTC senior Drazen Zlovaric (6 pts., 2 rebs. in 10 minutes) broke his nose in the first half when teammate Lance Stokes accidently hit him in the face with his elbow.
"I knew it was broken as soon as I was hit and I put it back in place as I was running down the court," said Zlovaric who noted he has had his nose broken in the past and wore a face mask in the second half.
"I am really not thinking about it too much and will go see the doctor in the morning."
Zlovaric scored his first points of the night on a dunk for a 4-2 Mocs lead at 18:09, left the game due to the injury a minute later and then scored back-to-back baskets upon re-entering the game two minutes prior to halftime.
"I am proud of our guys as we came out with energy from the start and sustained it throughout the game," said UTC coach John Shulman.
Furman (6-18, 3-10) was led by Stephen Croone (12 pts., 9 rebs) and Colin Reddick (12 pts., 4 assists, 3 rebs.).
"We did a great job on both ends of the court with rebounding and steals and turning those into points," said McGhee who has scored in double fgures in seven straight games.
The Mocs (11-15, 6-7) have now won three of their last four and posted its largest Southern Conference victory since beating Western Carolina by 16, 78-62, last season (Jan.5, 2012).
Under 50 Points: Tonight's win is the first time the Mocs have held a SoCon opponent under 50 points since a 48-46 loss to the Citadel last season. UTC also beat Wofford, 51-48, a year ago.
Lots of Injuries: Furman coach Jeff Jackson stated that he has five guys out with injury and only a freshman point guard.
"We are short-handed right now and John (Shulman) did a good job of exploiting our lack of depth, said Jackson. "We had trouble with the press (20 turnovers) which turned into UTC points."
UTC led in rebounds (48-34), steals (11-4), points off turnovers (21-9), fast break points (16-4) and had fewer turnovers (20-11)
At Chattanooga, Tenn. (The McKenzie Arena)
CHATTANOOGA 62, SAMFORD 59
SAMFORD (8-17, 6-6 SoCon)
KELLY, Raijon 6-11 6-6 19; WILLIAMS, Tim 5-11 3-4 13; GEFFRARD, JR., Clide
4-10 3-4 12; HOOD, Tyler 3-12 0-0 7; HAYMAN, Brandon 2-2 1-2 5; MILLER,
Connor 1-3 0-0 3; WILSON, Russell 0-0 0-1 0. Totals 21-49 13-17 59.
CHATTANOOGA (10-15, 5-7 SoCon)
McGHEE, Gee 4-10 5-6 14; ZLOVARIC, Drazen 6-8 1-3 13; STOKES, Lance 6-10 1-6
13; WHITE, Ronrico 2-7 4-4 8; MASON, Z. 3-10 1-1 7; COBB, Farad 1-3 0-0 2;
BAREIKA, Martynas 1-4 0-0 2; WATSON, Sam 1-1 0-0 2; BRYANT, Jared 0-2 1-2 1;
ROBERTSON, Eric 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 24-57 13-22 62.
Samford....................... 32 23 4 - 59
Chattanooga................... 25 30 7 - 62
3-point goals--Samford 4-21 (GEFFRARD, JR., Clide 1-5; HOOD, Tyler 1-7;
KELLY, Raijon 1-6; MILLER, Connor 1-3), Chattanooga 1-14 (McGHEE, Gee 1-4;
WHITE, Ronrico 0-4; MASON, Z. 0-1; COBB, Farad 0-1; BAREIKA, Martynas 0-2;
ROBERTSON, Eric 0-2). Fouled out--Samford-None, Chattanooga-None.
Rebounds--Samford 22 (MILLER, Connor 4; GEFFRARD, JR., Clide 4; WILLIAMS,
Tim 4), Chattanooga 43 (MASON, Z. 9). Assists--Samford 15 (KELLY, Raijon 6),
Chattanooga 14 (WHITE, Ronrico 6). Total fouls--Samford 16, Chattanooga 15.
Technical fouls--Samford-None, Chattanooga-TEAM. A-2976
contact B.B. Branton at wiilliam.branton@comast.net