Stefan Kenic led the Chattanooga Mocs in a gut-wrenching defeat at Virginia Tech Wednesday night
photo by Henry Paulk/GoMocs.com
It was a knock-down, drag-out 40-minute battle in Cassell Coliseum Wednesday night. The Chattanooga Mocs narrowly ended up on the short end of a 63-58 final at Virginia Tech.
Stefan Kenic came off the bench to score 16 to lead the visitors. David Jean-Baptiste added 14, while Ramon Vila chipped in 12 points and a game-high-tying eight rebounds. Nahiem Alleyne was the game’s top scorer with 22 for the Hokies with Landers Nolley II contributing 19.
Chattanooga trailed by as many as nine late in the first half.
They whittled that down taking a brief lead on a Kenic effort early in the second half. The game see-sawed from there and was tied at 45-all inside of seven minutes to go. Three-pointers by Kenic and Jean-Baptiste book-ended a Nolley drive in the lane to put the visitors ahead 51-47 with 5:23 remaining.
The Hokies responded with a 9-0 spurt capped by Tyrece Radford’s jumper at 1:47 flipping it to a five-point advantage. Kenic drove, missed, but grabbed the board and laid it in to settle the squad. Wabissa Bede had the dagger however, drilling a three from just left of the key to get the lead back to six.
“It was there for the taking,” Coach Lamont Paris shared. “We were right there. We had some chances. We got up by four and then gave up a three and that one hurt. I thought the second half we competed really well on [Landers] Nolley II. We just didn't do enough.
“We did a lot of good things, but we just couldn’t seize it when it was winning time.”
An empty possession was followed by two Nolley free throws. It was an eight-point game inside 40 seconds. Kenic again scored on the offensive glass and after Nolley missed the front end of a one-and-one, the Mocs pushed. Trey Doomes drove, kicked it Maurice Commander who swiftly fired to Jonathan Scott in the corner for three. The deficit was 61-58 with 6.5 to go.
The Mocs fouled, but Alleyene made both ends of his one-and-bonus opportunity to salt away the game.
The key stat came on the boards. The Hokies entered the contest 40th in the country in field goal percentage (47.9%). Chattanooga held them to their second-lowest percentage of the campaign at just 39 percent (23-59), but they converted 13 offensive rebounds into an 18-7 advantage in second chance points.
"We spoke at halftime,” Kenic offered. “We were down by four points, and that's after we gave them 14 second-chance points. We knew if we could cut that down, we'd have a shot. We'll do better next time, but I'm proud of my teammates for a better effort on boxing out in the second half."
The Mocs are in the holiday stretch run with three games remaining in 2019. Next up is a Sunday double-header with Troy. The women meet at 1:30 pm., with the men tangling again at 4 p.m. The two squads met on Nov. 12 with the Mocs coming back from 14 down in the second half to triumph 74-68.
Sunday’s games offers the chance to score a ticket deal while helping out local people in need this winter. Donate for the Salvation Army Coat Drive at the gate and get buy one, get one free tickets. The guys then go to UNC Asheville on Dec. 21 before going home for the holidays. They return for another Sunday double-header on Dec. 29 hosting Cumberland before the ladies take on Ohio.