Mark Wiedmer
It was near the end of Tuesday’s first half, UT-Chattanooga down 16 points to Bradley in the National Invitational Tournament quarterfinals, and ESPN’s Seth Greenburg was discussing the Braves’ domination to that point on their home court.
“To me,” said Greenburg, “they’re an NCAA Tournament team. They could have been in that tournament.”
A little over an hour later, UTC’s Mocs, the Magical Mocs of 2025, had come from those 16 points down — Bradley led by 13 at the half — to win 67-65 and advance to the NIT semifinals in Indianapolis, Indiana’s historic and iconic Hinkle Fieldhouse next Tuesday, April 1.
So doesn’t that make the Mocs an NCAA Tournament worthy team also, not that they can now enter that event? Doesn’t it put this Dan Earl-coached squad in the same beloved company as the 1977 Division II national champs and the 1997 Sweet 16 team? Doesn’t this team deserve a parade down Market Street whenever this Magical Victory Tour ends?
Everyone should have known these Mocs were special when they won the Southern Conference regular season with a 15-3 league mark. The SoCon may never be confused with the SEC, or even the Southland — where former UTC coach Will Wade’s McNeese State Cowboys busted some NCAA tourney brackets by beating Clemson last week — but it shouldn’t be. The athletic department budgets are apples and oranges compared to most leagues, not to mention the NIL deals.
But in guards Honor Huff and Trey Bonham, Earl has two insanely confident, polished and experienced guards who can compete with anyone and it showed in Tuesday’s final half, when the Mocs shredded a Bradley bunch that had been 19-0 this season when leading at the half.
As he had so often this season, Huff kept his teammates barely in the game over the opening 20 minutes, hitting a couple of triples and a couple of acrobatic drives to finish with 11 of UTC’s 25 first-half points.
Then Bonham scored all 17 of his points in the second, including the game-winner with 14 seconds to play. It’s always good to have talented guards at tournament time, and no one left in the NIT probably has two guards as good as Bonham and Huff.
Not that it was only Bonham and Huff. The Mocs actually took their first lead of the second half on a 3-pointer from Garrison Keeslar with a little under nine minutes to play. Bash Wieland, who struggled much of the night but turned in big plays late, and Collin Mullholland scored six points each. And freshman Latif Diouf pulled down a crucial rebound in the final seconds.
"I thought we showed a lot of heart and a lot of resiliency and a lot of toughness coming back and just competing in the second half, so I'm super proud of our guys," Earl told the media afterward. "It was another one of those games — I don't even know what happened necessarily in what scenario, but we did enough to get it done.”
This team has been this way all season, making the biggest plays when it mattered most. But what surely made Earl’s heart swell with pride was something Bradley coach Brian Wardle told the Peoria (Ill.) Journal Star newspaper immediately after the game.
“They just had more fight in the second half than we did,” noted Wardle.
To come from 13 down at halftime on the road against a NCAA Tournament-worthy team, they certainly did. And that fight just might carry them to a national title of sorts in a tournament that once upon a time, at the close of World War II, was more prestigious than the NCAA tourney.
That fight, that will to deliver in the clutch, that ability to elevate your abilities for the good of the team, certainly showed in Bonham’s heroics from the 3-point line when the Mocs had to have it.
After hitting three 3-pointers in a row to close out the game and the win, Bonham told the Peoria newspaper: “Usually we get other people making 3s, I’m usually getting downhill. My teammates were confident I was going to make that shot. During the last media break they told me it was my time.”
And now, because he made that shot, perhaps the biggest single shot in UTC history, it just might be these Magical Mocs’ time to add a NIT championship to that D-II national title won 48 years ago.
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Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@mccallie.org