The Chattanooga Mocs men's basketball team survived a second-half swing in momentum and continued its winning ways on the road following an 85-64 rout over Lipscomb inside Allen Arena on Sunday evening in Nashville, Tennessee.
Chattanooga has now won its last 10 non-conference road games dating back to 2019 and improves its season mark to 7-1 following the victory. Lipscomb falls to 5-4 on the year.
After leading by 20 at the halftime break, Lipscomb used a 22-6 run to open the second half and cut the deficit to four.
Chattanooga responded with a strong finish down the stretch to fend off the comeback effort.
"All road wins are good. It's a really good road team against a group that was hungry," said head coach Lamont Paris.
"They [Lipscomb] made a couple plays and next thing you know it's a single-digit game. You have to give them credit for that. All said and done, our guys did enough to win."
Chattanooga took an early 6-2 lead over Lipscomb in the game's first our minutes after a pair of Malachi Smith layups following a game-opening bucket from Silvio De Sousa. The lead grew to as much as seven (11-4, 14:28) in the early on a David Jean-Baptiste three ball.
After the hosts scored the next five points to cut their deficit to two, 11-9 with 11:28 left in the opening half, Chattanooga responded with a 17-3 run over the next five-plus minutes to grab a 28-12 (5:52) edge. Smith accounted for 10 points during that span which included a pair of threes.
The Mocs took a 38-18 lead into the break after finishing the half on a 6-0 run and holding the Bison scoreless over the final 2:27. UTC shot 48.3% (14-of-29) from the floor in the opening 20 minutes and limited Lipscomb to a lowly 28.0% (7-of-25) mark which included an 0-for-8 performance behind the arc and a 21-11 advantage for the visitors on the glass.
Lipscomb raced out on an 22-6 run to begin the second half and held Chattanooga scoreless for nearly four minutes to pull within four, 44-40 with 13:07 on the clock. KC Hankton knocked down a crucial three to stop all momentum on the ensuing possession to put the visitors back up by seven, 47-40.
UTC immediately responded by scoring 18 of the next 28 points to build 15-point lead, 65-50, with a 7:00 remaining in the game. Over the span, Jean-Baptiste connected on three, three pointers to help spark the rally. It was all Chattanooga down the stretch as their largest lead of the game (21) came at the final horn, 85-64.
Smith led all scorers with 27 points on 12-of-20 shooting and included a filled stat line with seven rebounds and seven assists. Jean-Baptiste posted 24 points behind a career-high seven threes (7-of-10) while adding five steals and four rebounds. De Sousa reached double digits in scoring with 11 while Darius Banks cleaned the glass with a game-high 12 boards.
Chattanooga dominated in the hustle stat categories, edging its opponent in rebounds (46-26), second chance points (27-10), points in the paint (36-28) and bench points (18-10). UTC limited Lipscomb to a 23.5% (4-of-17) mark from three and a 38.8% (19-of-49) overall percentage from the floor during the win.