The 1974-75 UTC team captured the first of two consecutive wins over Division I powerhouse Dayton. Pictured are Kevin Gray (front) and (standing left to right) William Gordon, Sylvester Davenport, Gary Stich and Wayne Golden.
photo by Contributed
When the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga welcomes the University of Dayton to McKenzie Arena for a second-round contest in the National Invitation Tournament this Saturday, it will mark the first time the Flyers have played in Chattanooga since the series between the schools commenced in 1949.
Dayton holds an 8-3 historical edge all-time, with the first five of those Flyer wins coming against the Mocs prior to Chattanooga becoming part of the University of Tennessee system in 1970.
But the dynamics of the series shifted when Ron Shumate took over the helm of Chattanooga’s program prior to the 1972-73 season.
Shumate was the consummate dreamer, casting a vision for UTC becoming a known entity on a national stage. As he was laying the foundation of success that led to the 1977 Division II national championship, Shumate knew that having a presence in the basketball hotbed of Ohio was important.
Shumate himself was from Portsmouth in southeast Ohio, and he knew gaining a toehold in close proximity to his established pipeline of talent emanating from Louisville could help stock his roster at a high level.
With limited recruiting resources at his disposal, Shumate reached out to the University of Dayton to gauge their interest in playing the Mocs in 1973. In his second season at UTC, Shumate had little leverage to wield but managed to get the Flyers to agree to hosting the Mocs.
“We had some kids from that area and we tried very hard to get at least a game or two every year in the region for recruiting purposes,” Shumate said. “We asked Dayton to play, and they were welcoming to have us go up there. But they didn't know that they weren’t going to win all the time.”
The Mocs roster over the next few years featured several players who hailed from Ohio, including Fred Rayhle, Kevin Galbraith, Rick Holmes, Clarence Irvin and Donnie Green. Playing in Dayton gave Shumate a chance to showcase what he was building in Chattanooga.
“My recruiting budget was only $2,500, so I had to be creative in stretching those dollars,” Shumate said. “I spent the night in a lot of rest stops back then.”
Chattanooga traveled to Dayton five straight years starting with the 1973-74 season during a period where the Flyers were a national power. Dayton had lost in the national championship game in 1967 to UCLA, the first of the Bruins seven straight titles. Dayton then took UCLA to triple overtime before losing 111-100 in the 1974 NCAA West Regional final having defeated nationally-ranked Notre Dame 97-82 earlier in the season.
The Mocs fell to the Flyers 87-62 in Shumate’s first trip to Dayton, but the next three years would provide different outcomes that served as a validation that something special was on the horizon for the UTC program.
With Dayton featuring future 10-year NBA veteran Johnny Davis at guard, the Mocs stunned the Flyers the next year. Thanks to 30 points from UTC’s Wayne Golden and 18 from William Gordon, Chattanooga escaped with a 78-73 win in ’74-’75 as the Mocs finished one win short of making it to the D-II Elite Eight.
The Mocs found themselves in a tailspin when venturing to Dayton in the ’75-’76 season. The previous week had resulted in a 111-70 beatdown at Florida State followed by an embarrassing 81-80 home loss to Tennessee Wesleyan. But UTC righted the ship thanks to 22 points from Gordon and 20 from Golden, defeating the Flyers by a 65-63 count to spark a resurgence that led to a national championship runner-up finish.
“These were supposed to be ‘money games’ where Dayton thought they could pay us to come up there and lose,” Shumate said. “They knew they weren’t going to have to pay a whole lot of money to play us at their place, and we ended up beating them a couple of times.”
Capturing wins against an established Division I power in consecutive years served as a springboard for what would unfold the next season. The Mocs were 16-3 entering the ’76-’77 matchup in Dayton that also included a stop at Northern Kentucky two days later. UTC ended up losing both games, but won their last 11 games that culminated in the D-II national title.
Dayton dealt Chattanooga a humbling loss the next year after moving up to Division I, 97-68, marking the end of the Mocs making their annual pilgrimage to Ohio.
It would be 37 years before the Mocs again returned to UD Arena. In Matt McCall’s first year as UTC’s head coach in December of 2015, Chattanooga’s Greg Pryor sank two free throws with five seconds remaining to give the Mocs a 61-59 win in the last meeting between the teams.
Dayton (23-10) enters Saturday’s game as the No. 1 seed in the NIT region bracket after winning at Florida Atlantic, 86-79. The Flyers have been relegated to a pair of road games due to their home arena serving as the site of this week’s NCAA Tournament play-in games as well as hosting the Ohio high school state basketball tournament this weekend.
After years of annual visits to Dayton, the scheduling conflict allows Chattanooga (25-9) the opportunity to finally host the Flyers. This is something that Shumate surely dreamed about five decades ago when building the UTC program.
Paul Payne can be emailed at paulpayne6249@gmail.com