Now that the dust has settled and Indiana basketball fans have begun wrapping their arms around a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament, let’s take a look at IU’s first round opponent No. 12 seed Chattanooga.
Indiana and Chattanooga will tip off on Thursday night in Des Moines, Iowa at 7:10 p.m. ET.
Here’s what we know: The Moc’s are 29-5 overall and had the same record in Southern Conference play as Indiana had in the Big Ten – 15-3.
Chattanooga was 13-1 at home, 10-4 on the road and 6-0 in neutral site games.
Chattanooga and Indiana had two common opponents this season – Illinois and Kennesaw State.
The Moc’s beat Illinois Nov. 21 in the opening game of the Emerald Coast Classic. That’s one of those events where you play two games on a local site, in this case for Illinois the game was played in Springfield. And then you advance and play two games at another site which for this event was in Niceville, Fla.
But Chattanooga defeated the Illini 81-77.
The other common opponent was Kennesaw State and the Moc’s won that game 78-66. An interesting note on that one is that they played Kennesaw State on Dec. 18 which means that was four days before Indiana beat Kennesaw State 99-72. So the games were played at about the same time.
Indiana beat Illinois twice, winning 103-69 in Bloomington and 74-47 when the teams met in Champaign.
Chattanooga also had a good win over Georgia in Athens in the season opener, winning 92-90 in overtime. Georgia went on to have a 19-13 record overall including 10-8 in the SEC.
Chattanooga’s five losses were to No. 4 (at the time) Iowa State by 20, Louisiana Monroe by 10, Furman by 15, Western Carolina by six and UNC Greensboro by 15.
Here’s a little bit closer look at Chattanooga:
The Moc’s have eight players averaging between 6.0 points and 12.3 points per game.
The starting five is 6-10 redshirt junior Justin Tuoyo, 6-7 junior forward Chuck Ester, 6-5 redshirt junior Tre McLean, 6-2 junior guard Greg Pryor and 6-4 senior guard Eric Robertson.
McLean is the leading scorer and rebounder at 12.3 points and 6.4 rebounds. Tuoyo is averaging 11.1 points and 5.0 rebounds. Ester averages 7.7 points, Pryor averages 9.9 points and 4 assists per game and Robertson is averaging 8.8 points per game. Robertson shot 40.4 percent from 3-point range this season and made 80 3-pointers.
As far as team numbers go, Chattanooga shot 45.6 percent from the field, 36.4 percent from 3, 73.3 percent from the free throw line. The Moc’s made more free throws (581) than their opponents attempted (566). They averaged 75.8 points per game and 35.8 rebounds.
One note on the scoring, the Moc’s scored over 90 points in six games this season. But in the last 12 games, they only scored more than 80 one time.
Another thing is crowds and Chattanooga averaged a home attendance of 3,530 this season.
In the Southern Conference Tournament, Chattanooga won three games in a row to earn the automatic bid. But all three games were close. It beat Samford 59-54, Western Carolina 73-69 and Eastern Tennessee State 73-67.
I hope to bring you more about the Moc’s when I’m on site in Des Moines beginning Wednesday.
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