Moc-nificent: ASU falls in semis to home team
By Steve Behr

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Chattanooga fans may get an “F” in grammer, but they got an “A” when it came to supporting the Mocs.

The fact that many were wearing shirts that said “Who’s House?” instead of the grammatically correct “Whose House?” on their T-shirts didn’t seem to matter to those sporting the yellow shirts with blue writing. All that mattered was they had just seen their hometown Mocs knock off Appalachian State 57-51 in the semifinals of the Southern Conference Tournament in front of 6,187 at McKenzie Arena.

The Mountaineers, winners of preliminary games Wednesday and Thursday, failed to become just the second team to play four games and the first to play four and win the SoCon tournament in its present format. Appalachian State finished the season 18-11 after winning 10 of its final 13 games.

The Mountaineers finished the regular season tied with UNC Greensboro, but lost the tie-breaker with the Spartans and was the third seed from the North Division. No team has won the Southern Conference Tournament in its present format without help from a first-round bye, though Furman reached the finals in 2002 as a No. 5 seed from the South Division.

Little of that mattered to the Mountaineers, who saw a 32-26 lead go up in smoke by the first official timeout of the second half.

“It’s going to hurt for a long time,” Appalachian State point guard D.J. Thompson said.

Though neither team shot terribly well — Appalachian State hit 31.5 percent of its shots while Chattanooga hit 31.1 percent — the Mocs held a critical 50-35 advantage in rebounding. The biggest Mountaineer killer of all was Mindaugas Katelynas, a 6-foot-8 all-SoCon transfer forward from Virginia Tech who scored 18 points and pulled down a tournament high 21 rebounds.

“I thought he might have been padding his stats by missing shots,” joked Chattanooga coach John Shulman.

Katelynas, who was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player based largely on his performance Friday, grabbed 11 rebounds on the offensive end. Overall, the Mocs grabbed 21 offensive boards.

“They obviously rebounded well,” Mountaineers coach Houston Fancher said. “Katelynas had a lot of rebounds for them in the second half for them. They hurt us on the boards in the second half.”

“At half, we were down by five or six boards and that’s not who we are,” Shulman said. “We defend and we rebound and we talked about that at half.”

Despite its problem on the boards, Appalachian State did not let Chattanooga pull away until the end when the Mocs hit 6 of 8 from the foul line in the final 42.6 seconds of the game. Chattanooga led 48-45 until Noah Brown was fouled while taking a 3-pointer.

He made all three foul shots to tie the game at 48-48, but Chattanooga’s Casey Long buried a 3 with 2:05 left. Chris Brown added a foul shot on the Mocs’ next possession, but Thompson showed the Mountaineers were not ready to concede their season just yet by nailing a 3-pointer of his own with 24.2 left, pulling Appalachian to 52-51.

Katelynas took over from there, hitting 5 of 6 from the foul line and grabbing two key defensive rebounds to help the Mocs seal the game.

“What a battle. Wow,” Fancher said. “It was an intense game in a great atmosphere. This is tournament play. I thought that it was a remarkable battle. Both teams played their hearts out.”

Thompson was the lone Mountaineer to be named to the all-tournament squad, having been voted to the second team. Brown added 12 points and Nate Cranford had eight for the Mountaineers, who hit 8 of 32 from 3-point range.

Katelynas, Brown, Long and Alphonso Pugh were also voted to either the first or second teams. Long finished with 14 points against the Mountaineers and Brown had 10.

“A lot of his points came off of offensive rebounds,” Fancher said of Katelynas. “He made some key free throws for them down the stretch which was big for them. He played really hard and we know what a competitor he was.”

Appalachian State fell behind 12-7 early in the game, but managed to take a 22-21 lead on a Brown 3-pointer with 5:15 left in the first half. It was the start of a 13-2 run that gave the Mountaineers a 32-25 halftime lead.

Chattanooga opened the second half with a 13-4 run and claimed a 38-36 lead with 11:47 left in the game. No team led by more than four points until the final score.

Chattanooga 57, Appalachian State 51

Appalachian State (18-12)

Deas 0-4 0-0 0, McLaughlin-Williams 0-0 0-0 0, Cranford 3-11 0-0 8, Thompson 5-15 2-2 16, Brown 3-10 4-6 12, Scott 1-4 0-0 2, Davis 0-2 0-0 0, Clayton 2-3 0-1 4, Thomas 0-2 3-4 3, Jones 3-3 0-0 6. Totals 17-54 9-13 51.

Chattanooga (20-10)

Katelynas 6-14 6-9 18, Brown 4-11 2-4 10, Anderson 2-5 0-2 4, Cherry 1-6 2-2 4, Long 5-10 0-0 14, Crouch 0-2 0-0 0, Pugh 1-4 4-4 7, Hunt 0-2 0-0 0, Hood 0-2 0-0 0, Mastin 0-2 0-0 0, 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 19-61 14-21 57.

Halftime score—ASU 32, UTC 26. 3-point goals—ASU 8-32 (Thompson 4-11, Cranford 2-9, Brown 2-9, Scott 0-2, Davis 0-1), UTC 5-14 (Long 4-7, Pugh 1-1, Mastin 0-2, Malone 0-1, Cherry 0-1, Brown 0-1). Rebounds–ASU 50 (Deas 9), UTC 50 (Katelynas 21). Assists—ASU 14 (Clayton 4), UTC 12 (Long 3). Turnovers—ASU 10, UTC 10. Total fouls—ASU 18, UTC 13. Fouled out—None. Technical fouls—None.