Honor Huff Scores Career High 31 Points in Mocs 84-71 Win Over ETSU

(gomocs.com) CHATTANOOGA (Feb. 14, 2024) – Behind a career-high 31 points from Honor Huff, the Chattanooga Mocs men’s basketball team showed its Valentine’s Day love of the three-ball during an 84-71 victory over ETSU in the 100^th all-time meeting in the rivalry series during Southern Conference action Wednesday night in McKenzie Arena.
 
Following the win, Chattanooga improves to 18-8 on the season and remains in second place in the SoCon standings at 10-3. ETSU falls to an even 13-13 overall and now posts a 5-8 mark in league action.
 
Huff finished with his career-high 31 points with the help of a school-tying record of nine three-pointers made with six of the triples coming in the first half. UTC also finished with 21 assists on its 28 made field-goal attempts to notch an all-around solid effort.
 
“Overall, it was a good win. If we could bottle up the last 12 minutes of the first half, I thought we played really well. In the second half, credit to ETSU, we were playing at their pace,” said head coach Dan Earl following the game.
 
“We have some things to clean up certainly, but proud of the guys for pulling out a big win against ETSU. Hopefully we’ll get better from it.”

HOW IT HAPPENED
Chattanooga jumped out to an 11-7 lead at the game’s first media timeout (15:57) following three early triples, two from Honor and Huff and one from Randy Brady, in the early going. The two teams continued to get a feel for one another over the next four-plus minutes and were deadlocked at 18-18 with 11:54 left in the opening half.
 
After ETSU grabbed a slight 21-20 at the 9:53 mark, Chattanooga answered with back-to-back threes from Huff and Tyler Milin to jump back in front 26-21 (8:07). Leading 30-28 with 5:06, UTC finished the half on large 15-2 run that was capped off by Huff’s sixth three to send the squad into the break leading 45-30.
 
Chattanooga finished the first 20 minutes shooting 48.4% (15-of-31) from the field which included a 40.9% (9-of-22) mark from deep. The Mocs created a sizable rebounding advantage in the half, 19-9, including a 10-4 edge on the offensive glass that led to a 12-5 margin in second-chance points.
 
UTC kept its offensive attack going in the early stages of the second half, this time from inside the arc, connecting on four of its first five attempts at the rim to hold a 56-38 lead with 15:05. The Bucs immediately answered with a 13-3 run to close the gap to eight, 59-51 (11:06), while forcing a Mocs timeout.
 
ETSU would cut it down to six, 64-58 (7:08), on its seventh three of the game before Millin answered with a triple of his own to push it back to nine, 67-58, with 6:52 remaining in the game. Trey Bonham converted a spinning and-one moments before a defensive stop and a Randy Brady three that gave the hosts a 76-63 lead with just 4:05 left.
 
The Mocs would push it back to as many as 17, 81-64 (1:55), on Huff’s school-record tying ninth three of the game before Bonham capped off the 84-71 victory with a triple of his own. UTC knocked down 16 threes as a team in the win, one shy of tying its SoCon home-game record of 17.   

RECORDS/SERIES – Chattanooga 18-8, 10-3 SoCon · ETSU 13-13, 5-8 SoCon · Series: UTC now leads the all-time series 54-46.

THREE KEY NOTES | 
1. The Mocs finished shooting 52.8% (28-of-53) from the floor in total… sixth time in last eight games finishing north of 50.0%… seventh time this season finishing with 50%+ FG/40%+ 3FG/20+ 3FGA… entered tonight’s contest one of just nine NCAA DI teams to have six or more games with such stat line.
 
2. Honor Huff finished with a career-high 31 points after knocking down a career-high 10 FG’s on 17 attempts… tied a school record and set career record with nine made 3PT FG’s (9-of-16)… added two rebounds, two assists and two steals.
 
3. The Mocs posted a 10-6 edge in fast-break points… 10^th-straight game finishing with an advantage in fast-break points… outscoring its opponents 329-237 in that category this season.

QUOTABLE |

HC Dan Earl on the pace of play in the second half.
“To be honest, I’d rather it be a little faster. That might seem counter intuitive since you have a lead so you shouldn’t be in a rush, and you could see there was one where I about lost my mind where we got the defensive rebound and then threw it to them in transition. There’s an art between going fast, but possession still matters even more than going fast. I didn’t like the pace of the game or the flow of the game and we made some ill-advised turnovers in that stretch, so I’d rather it be faster but it was what it was. It’s sometimes good to figure out ways to win when the pace of the game isn’t where you want it.”
 
G Honor Huff on what sitting out last year allowed him to learn.
“Just seeing the speed of the game. I think some people forget that this is only my second year playing college basketball. Just seeing where I can include my game into the offensive culture and seeing it in a new light in Chattanooga. Seeing defenses and how I can incorporate my shooting or driving to creation in the game, that was probably the biggest thing, just analyzing that. Plus getting stronger in the weight room, that was a big takeaway from that year for me.”

NEXT UP – at Furman – Sunday, February 18 – 3:00 p.m. ET – Greenville, S.C. – CBS Sports Network