Senior Joshua Phillips tied his career high with 17 points to go with a game-high-tying 10 rebounds in the Chattanooga Mocs 72-51 loss at UNCG in Southern Conference play Friday night. He and Makale Foreman combined for 32 points.
Phillips’ effort led all scorers, Foreman has 33 points in his two starts at point guard for the injured Rodney Chatman.
James Lewis, Jr., matched Phillips with 10 boards. The Spartans were led by Marvin Smith and Isaiah Miller with 14 points apiece.
The Mocs led 10-8 at the under 12 media timeout. They made just three of their next 12 shots (25%) and turned it over five times to see the game get away.
UNCG closed the half with a 23-6 run. It held its visitors to one score over 10-and-a-half minutes of clock time, but fortunately the Mocs played strong enough on the defensive end to keep it manageable at the break, 31-16.
“It was a bad first half overall,” Coach Lamont Paris noted. “It looked worse because we didn’t finish around the basket. It was a combination of things. We felt like we played so poorly in the first half, down 16-31 at halftime, and there are probably nine points that I’d call pretty easy out there that changes the whole scope of it.”
Both teams found their stroke early in the second frame. The Mocs twice got within 13 early and doubled their first-half out in the first seven-plus minutes after intermission. But the Spartans started to pull away.
Miller made is a 22-point affair, 50-28, with a layup at 14:37. A consistent theme from this season, the Mocs did not wilt. They battled back to 15 down first on a Phillips layup at 11:15 and on his three-point play at 9:33, but the Scenic City crew could not sustain enough on the offensive end to make a run.
Up 53-38 after the Phillips effort, the Mocs got a defensive stop. David Jean-Baptiste made a steal on a Kyrin Galloway turnover. He drove the lane with a chance to get it to 13, but missed a layup on a Jordy Kuiper block, collected the miss but could not score in traffic.
Miller came down and missed a jumper but it back directly to him leading to a layup. Demetrius Troy added a three after another interior miss for the Mocs to get the lead back to 20 and end the Chattanooga threat.
“I told them in the locker room that I thought we played hard,” Paris added. “We did, we played hard. But I didn’t think we did a good job of competing. At one point, it seemed like they had a one-man press times five out there. I thought we did a better job attacking in the second half.”
The Mocs end the regular season on the road Sunday at VMI. The game airs on ESPN3/WatchESPN app tipping off at 1 p.m.