The Chattanooga Mocs are NIT Champions! The first NCAA DI national tournament crown matching the 1977 DII title. Garrison Keeslar hit the winning shot in overtime to cap an 85-84 drama filled affair.
UC Irvine opened the second half on a 11-2 run to take an 8-point lead, 48-40. The Mocs chipped away and cut it to one five times only to see the Anteaters find answers.
It was a 73-67 deficit when Garrison Keeslar nailed a triple from the top of the key to get it back to one possession, 73-70 at 2:13. Bent Leuchten hit one of two free throws to get the lead back to four. On the ensuing possession, the Mocs missed two threes but scrapped for offensive rebounds on big plays from Keeslar and Bash Wieland.
Keeslar came through again with another three to cut it to one, 74-73. UC Irvine went to the free throw line with 27.6 seconds on the clock. Justin Hohn missed both to set Honor Huff up for heroics. He missed a three with 16.3 left on the clock but was fouled by former Moc Myles Che. Huff made all three for the 76-74 advantage.
Che then pump faked and leaned into Keeslar drawing three free throws of his own at 13.1. He made the first two to tie it and then saw the third spin out. Trey Bonham claimed the rebound and sped to the bench and called timeout with 8.1 seconds remaining.
The Mocs worked the ball inside to Collin Mulholland. His jumper in the paint rimmed out and rolled out of bounds at 1.7 with the possession staying with UTC. He got a chance at redemption with a three from the top of the key which also rimmed out.
The two teams traded scores and stops throughout the extra period. Irvine had Devin Tillis make one of two free throws at 1:51 and then Che made one of two 18 seconds later to make it an 82-80 Anteater lead.
Mulholland got the answer with a three which quickly shifted to a Che jumper as the changes were rapid fire. An empty possession down one saw UCI back at the line with 31.0 to go. Leuchten missed them both and the Mocs brought it down and found Keeslar. He hit a 15-footer for the lead.
The Anteaters floated a pass into Leuchten but Bonham swooped in to intercept and pass it to Huff who was fouled with 2.7 to play. He missed them both giving UCI the length of the floor to go with 2.4 on the clock. The 2.4 seemed like an eternity as the full court pass went to Leuchten who hopped and passed to Jurian Dixon who missed from 3-feet our for the Mocs win.
Chattanooga finishes its season with a win for the first time since the 1977 NCAA Division II Championship. That goes with the 13th regular season Southern Conference title for the program and school record-tying 29 wins making it a season for the ages.
RECORDS – Chattanooga: 29-9 | UCI 32-7
INSIDE THE BOX – SCORE
Scoring Leaders – UTC: 19-Trey Bonham/Collin Mulholland | UCI: 19-Devin Tillis
Rebounding Leaders – UTC: 10- Bonham/Garrison Keeslar | UCI: 11-Bent Leuchten
Assist Leaders – UTC: 5- Keeslar | UCI: 4-Justin Hohn
Largest Leads – UTC: 8 (8-0– 17:58 1st | LUC: 8 (48-40 – 14:07 2nd)
Lead Changes: 14 | Times Tied: 9
UC Irvine entered the game ranked third in the nation at 80.1 percent at the free throw line. It 21-34 tonight, 61.8 percent.
Keeslar loaded up the stat sheet with 14 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and three steals.
UTC held a 17-12 advantage on second chance points. Only allowed six offensive boards to the bigger Anteaters squad.
Career-high five 3pt made for Mulholland. UC Irvine hit five as a team.
Chattanooga overcame a tough shooting night at 38.9 percent largely due to a 14 of 44 night (21.8 percent) from three.
Five Anteaters scored in double figures.
NIT HISTORY
5th appearance but first since 1987. The program made four straight NITs from 1984-87. That was in the middle of the first eight DI postseasons for the Mocs going to the NCAA Tournament in 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1988.
8-4 all-time in the event (3-2 road).
23rd postseason appearance in school history: NCAA DI (12) & DII (5) tournaments, NIT (5) and CIT (1).
44th postseason contest: 22-22 record: 8-4 NIT | 3-12 NCAA DI | 11-5 NCAA DII | 0-1 CIT.
4-0 all-time in overtime in the NIT. Second overtime game of this year's run (109-103 at Middle Tennessee).
Matched the longest postseason run in school history. The 1977 squad won the NCAA Division II National Championship a year after finishing as runner-up in 1976 in the same event.
Matched the deepest postseason run in SoCon history with West Virginia finishing as NCAA runner-up in 1959.
SERIES HISTORY
Meetings: 4
Record: 4-0
Neutral: 2-0
Postseason: 1-0
Streak: +4
NOTES TO KNOW
First time in school history with three student-athletes scoring 500 or more points in a single season: Huff (578), Bonham (554) & Wieland (502).
Bonham averaged 22.2 points per game in the NIT Championship race.
Huff played 224:10 out of a possible 225:00 in the 5-game title hunt. That's an average of 44.8 minutes per game.
Huff is the national leader in 3pt made with 131.
Keeslar's five assists came with zero turnovers. He's the national leader in A/TO ratio (5.62).
Won 17 of the last 18 games. 21-4 since the calendar shifted to 2025.
Won 13 of the last 14 games outside of Chattanooga.
29 wins for the second time in school history: 29 (2015-16).
Five postseason wins for Dan Earl ranks second in school history behind Ron Shumate (11).
68 wins for Earl is a program record for the first three years of a coaching tenure ahead of Mack McCarthy (62), Murray Arnold (61) and Ron Shumate (59).
POSTGAME QUOTES
Head Coach Dan Earl's opening statement following Chattanooga's 85-84 overtime victory over UC Irvine in the NIT title game.
"I don't want to watch that last play where they got that little layup and offensive rebound layup, I think is what happened. That's not the way we drew it up. But super proud of these guys, as everyone says when you win a championship like this, but they are a wonderful young group. They all remained completely unselfish and played the right way throughout the year. This might have been our least efficient offensive game in, I can't even tell you how long, so there was some great defense involved in this game, which we were fortunate to come out on top against a very, very good UC Irvine team. They are great on both sides of the ball, but super proud of our guys. These are the two guys sitting here, but Garrison (Keeslar) has given us courage all year long, plays extremely unselfish and is an unbelievable defender. He's willing to do whatever it takes to win. And then Trey Bonham, we have a long history, but I can't tell you how proud I am of him. I've been with him a while and I've been really tough on him in the past. Eased up a little bit, but I'm so proud that he's playing his best basketball at the end of his career and able to cut down the nets for a championship. Proud of all the guys and we'll take it."
