Chattanooga News

eulesseagle · December 3, 2005

Mocs still must learn man-to-man defense

By David Uchiyama Staff Writer

Freshman guard Jaycen Herring started against Asbury College but didn’t play in the second half of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s 97-60 basketball win Thursday.

The Mocs didn’t need his offensive skills, but coach John Shulman wasn’t resting Herring. He just wanted to see if the shooting guard would play some defense.

"I think the quickest way to a player’s head is through the seat of his pants," Shulman said. "If we’re trying to be good in the long run, we may have to serve lessons in the short run.

"Jaycen must learn what we think is important. He’ll get there."

Freshman forward Nicchaeus Doaks joined Herring on the bench for all but two minutes of the second half, even though he scored 13 points and grabbed six rebounds.

"Coach knows I can score, but he says I give up as many points as I score," Doaks said. "I really want to work on my defense, because the better defense I play, the more playing time I’ll get."

The freshmen have a chance to impress Shulman tonight when the Mocs play at North Texas at 8. Despite the 37-point win Thursday night, Shulman left McKenzie Arena with a sour taste in his mouth. UTC allowed Derek Bland to score 24 points in the first half against the Mocs’ base man-to-man defense.

Shulman assigned junior Ricky Hood to shut down Bland in the second half by never leaving his side. Bland scored six points in the final 20 minutes. That result pleased Shulman, but not the method.

"I don’t like going against our philosophy," he said. "That hurts my gut, hurts my heart. It goes against what I believe, but I’m not going to be hard-headed about it. I’m going to do what’s best for the team."

Junior captain Casey Long said the problems with UTC’s defense starts with the simple fact that six of 10 available scholarship players are new to the system. Four players are true freshmen, and Herring redshirted last year.

"Coach is trying his hardest to get us to do it right," Long said. "It’s going to jell eventually, but it’s not clicking for us right now."

The Mocs have experimented with a 2-3 zone in their last two games and had some success.

"I’m going to have to make a decision here soon," Shulman said. "We’ve got to figure out other ways to stop people."

Long said he doesn’t anticipate standing at the top of the key and waving his arms to play defense this year. He expects to follow his man around the court, double on the post when necessary and recover to shooters — the fundamentals of UTC’s base defense.

"We’ll do whatever he asks us to do," Long said. "We’re trying to prove to him that we can play man-to-man.

"But we can’t talk about it. We have to do it for one game, then two games, then three games."

He hopes game one is tonight.

E-mail David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com