Fourteen home games highlight the 2025-26 Chattanooga women’s basketball schedule along with a few rematches, a trip to Florida and Thanksgiving in California, head coach Deandra Schirmer announced.
“We have a lot of home games, which is great,” Schirmer said. “That’s a lot of opportunities for our fans to come out and support us. We’re looking forward to that.”
The home slate begins right off the bat with earliest start to a season in program history. The Mocs host King University on November 3 and after a three-game stretch on the road, return for three straight at The McKenzie Arena.
Those three games include UAB on Nov.
16 with instate foe Austin Peay traveling to the Scenic City on Nov. 20 and Northern Kentucky following that two days later. December’s home slate begins on the seventh with a rematch against Bellarmine. The Mocs then close out play before Christmas hosting Western Kentucky.
“That will be a big game for us,” Schirmer said. “After the girls spend some time at home we come back to finish at home against Southern Wesleyan before we start with the conference.”
Chattanooga’s non-conference time on the road will be well spent starting with a trip to the Sunshine State to face Florida in the first of a home-and-home series.
“We’re really excited for Florida,” Schirmer said. “We’re excited about playing in that SEC environment at the University of Florida. We know it’s going to be a tough game, being the second of the season, but we’re eager for the challenge.”
The Mocs return to Tennessee for their third straight matchup in three years with Lipscomb before traveling to Alabama to take on Troy.
“In our non-conference schedule we have a lot of earmarked games that we’re really excited for. We also have some tough rematches from last season. We are looking forward to have the opportunity to play those again. Most notably, probably Troy. We played them twice last year so we’re looking forward to that rematch.”
The Mocs fell twice to Troy, the first at home in November. However, it was the second that carried the most weight. UTC qualified for the WNIT and drew Troy in the second round.
Chattanooga came out firing on all cylinders, controlling the game and carried the lead into halftime. Troy, however, responded with a strong third quarter and held on to get the win.
Thanksgiving finds the Mocs heading west for a holiday tournament hosted by California Baptist University near the hometown of junior Caia Elisaldz. UTC takes on Sacramento State on Friday and, in true tournament fashion, will face either host CBU or UC Santa Barbara the next day.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to bring her back home for Thanksgiving so she gets to be around family,” Schirmer said of her point guard. “We’ll be facing some new teams and playing some really quality competition when we’re there as well.”
Another trip to Nashville is the Mocs lone road match in December when they take on Tennessee State on the 11th.
Southern Conference play begins the second week of January and runs through the end of February with a split of seven games at the Roundhouse and seven on the road. It looks to be another challenging season as the Mocs begin the hunt for a 23rd SoCon regular season title.
“When you’re talking about the conference games, it’s a gauntlet,” Schirmer said. “Every single time we’re going to be challenged.”
The Mocs start league play at home against Wofford on January 8 followed by Furman on the 10th. Road play against the SoCon begins the next week at ETSU on the 17th.
“Starting at home rather than the road, I’m excited to have the home crowd behind us with really, really tough games off the bat. Then it’s nice getting a little bit of a break, not having a Thursday game and then being on the road that weekend at East Tennessee State. We have tough competition after tough competition from then on out.”
That competition starts the next week with the Mocs heading to North Carolina to take on UNC Greensboro on Jan. 22 and then Western Carolina two days later in Cullowhee.
The first half of the season ends at home with Mercer visiting on Jan. 30 in a rare Friday matchup and Samford arrives for a Sunday game on Feb. 1.
The schedule flips for the second half with UTC on the road to Furman (Feb. 5) and Wofford (Feb. 7) before heading home for a three game stretch. It gets started with the Bucs on Valentine’s Day, Western Carolina on Feb. 19, and closes out with Senior Day against UNC Greensboro on Feb. 21 at the Roundhouse.
A pair of road games ends the regular season with Chattanooga heading to Samford on Feb. 26 and Mercer on Feb. 28.
“Finishing on the road is going to be a big challenge for us,” Schirmer said. “We hope to be in a really solid position at that point. We’re going to be playing for something special.”
The Southern Conference Championship tips off Thursday, March 5 at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, N.C., and runs through Sunday, March 8. Season tickets are on sale now at the McKenzie Arena box office and online at GoMocs.com.