SoCon Revenge Tour Part Deux: Chattanooga

University of Tennessee Chattanooga (9-14, 4-6)
College of Charleston (17-7, 9-3)
McKenzie Arena
Tipoff at 7:30 on GoMocs.com 

Not every team CofC faces on this SoCon Revenge Tour has defeated the Cougars this season. There's one, Chattanooga, who lost to CofC in dominating fashion. After the Samford collapse the Cougars responded with their absolute best game of the season and crushed the Mocs inside TD Arena just two days later. This is a revenge game for the Mocs, not for the Cougars.

If the Cougars aren't careful they could drop this one. The game back in January was a bit flukey. In scoring 86 points (still a season high) the Cougars shot way above their average percentages. They also mixed in their usually stout defense against a team that started the desperation heaves about 6 minutes into the game.

The Mocs are a bit different now. First off they're playing at home, an arena that has never been kind to the CofC Cougars (damn you 2009 SoCon Tournament). Secondly they are rocking a new lineup with senior Dontay Hampton out the rest of the year. That means more time for talented underclassmen Rico White and Gee McGhee. The Mocs looked mighty impressive last night against our lowcountry brethren the Citadel, so much so that fellow blogger JohnMoc described it as "their most complete game of the year."

There are still things the Chattanooga Mocs do very well. They rebound at an elite level. They are lengthy and quick on their feet which makes running an offense against them extremely difficult (especially *gulp* a team that has tendencies to turn the ball over). Last night Shulman implemented perhaps my favorite wrinkle in SoCon basketball this season by demanding full court pressure from his guys the entire game. Now, the Cougars have not been terrible against full court this season-even Chattanooga's, most of our turnovers in the beginning of the year came from feeding the post. I think Willis, Anthony Thomas and whoever is off ball between Stitt and Lawrence actually do a good job of navigating full and 3/4 court pressure. However I hope this is something the coaching staff is prepared for.

If it's going to be a run and gun game expect big-time plays from Anthony Thomas and Theo Johnson. Remember last time these two teams met Andrew Lawrence only had seven points and Trent Wiedeman was still recovering from injury. I would love to keep this momentum going into the Davidson game next week and I would love to sweep a team from the North division. If the Cougars lost this one it would not be the end of the world but it's time to put away teams we're supposed to beat.