Senior guard Trey Bonham led the Mocs with 22 points
photo by Evansville Athletics
Trey Bonham had been miffed by the slow start to his senior season. Picked as the favorite to win Player of the Year honors in the Southern Conference during the preseason, the guard from Mobile, Ala. fully believed that his best basketball was still in front of him.
Maybe Thursday night was the turning point.
Bonham scored 13 of his game-high 22 points in the first half to lead Chattanooga (6-4) to a 75-67 win over Evansville at the Ford Center in Evansville, Ind. He finished the night 8-of-12 from the field including success on 4-of-6 3-pointers and perfect on a pair of free throws.
"(Road wins) are hard to come by,” Chattanooga head coach Dan Earl said. “Evansville, you know, like I said before the game, they probably wanted to have won a couple more games, but they are a good team and certainly playing on the road against a Missouri Valley team isn't easy. There were some late game things that we certainly have to clean up. My blood pressure was going through the roof on some defensive stuff. But on the whole, a lot of guys positively impacted the game, and we got some really good minutes from some guys."
The game also featured a comeback of the Mocs’ accuracy beyond the arc after entering the contest converting only 27.5% of their long-range tries. UTC made a season-best 12-of-26 treys, shooting 50% from the field overall as a team.
Junior guard Honor Huff also returned to form with 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting on 3-pointers, including a pair of clutch bombs late in the shot clock in the final minutes to help preserve the victory. Huff also surpassed the 1,000-point mark for his career as he entered the game from the bench for the first time in his tenure with the Mocs.
In only his second game back from injury, senior transfer Frank Champion made his first start and displayed glimpses of his dominance inside by scoring all 12 of his points after halftime.
"Today I think I showed my inside presence,” Champion said. “That's one of the things that I kind of cater to my game. I want to use my size and versatility, and once I start getting that feeling back too, getting that moving that I want, I think I can bring a push to the pace in transition. We have shooters around us, so being able to spread it is also big."
The Mocs jumped out to an early 22-11 lead thanks to a barrage of threes from a rather unlikely source. After Bonham scored the first eight points for UTC, 6-foot-10 redshirt freshman Collin Mulholland – who entered the game having made only 1-of-12 from long range on the season - reeled off three 3-pointers in 54 seconds to force Evansville to call a timeout.
Chattanooga increased its lead to 41-29 at intermission when Sean Cusano dropped a fadeaway shot from an inbounds play at the buzzer, the Mocs largest halftime advantage on the season.
UTC managed to maintain its 12-point advantage at 51-39 with 16:23 remaining before a flashback to last year’s contest with the Purple Aces transpired. In that game last November, the Mocs held a 19-point advantage with 12 minutes remaining before Evansville stormed back to claim an overtime win at McKenzie Arena.
A scoring drought lasting more than seven minutes Thursday night allowed Evansville to score 13 consecutive points to take a 52-51 lead at the midway point of the second half. This time, though, the Mocs responded well after seeing their lead evaporate.
Consecutive buckets by Champion sparked a 7-0 to put UTC back in front by six, followed by 3-pointers from Bonham and Huff on consecutive possessions to increase their advantage to 11 with 3:12 remaining.
"I thought we showed a lot of resiliency there,” Earl said. “We had a sizable lead or decent lead, and then they took the lead in the second half. Sometimes we try to hit the home run rather than staying with a single, single, single. I thought we did a really good job, maybe the best of the season, in that regard."
Evansville ran off seven straight points in the final minute to trim the deficit back to four, but Bonham and Garrison Keeslar were perfect on a pair of free throws each in the final seconds to seal the victory.
Chattanooga again got solid production from the reserves, outscoring Evansville (3-7) from the bench by a 34-13 margin. The Mocs also narrowly won the rebounding battle, 31-29, and limited the Purple Aces to 36% shooting for the evening.
Chattanooga returns to action on Sunday at McKenzie Arena for a 2 p.m. contest against Alabama A&M.
Paul Payne can be emailed at paulpayne6249@gmail.com