The Chattanooga Mocs have garnered a No. 13 seed in the 2022 NCAA Tournament and are set to face Illinois on Friday at 6:50p but, can Chattanooga pull the upset? If so, how do they do it?
The main focus of UTC will be Illini big-man Kofi Cockburn who averaged a double-double this season (22 points-10 rebounds), Cockburn stands 7 feet and 280lbs. While the Mocs don’t have anyone to directly match up with Cockburn they do have a big man in their own right in Silvio De Sousa who stands 6’10” 250lbs and that’ll be a main matchup in this one.
Here’s a listen to how De Sousa views this matchup along with his journey to Chattanooga.
The Mocs will have to lean heavily on their strong guard play with SoCon tournament hero David Jean-Baptiste and SoCon Player of the Year Malachi Smith they will need to be the straw that stir the drink for Chattanooga.
Smith is so steady with his scoring as a lengthy athletic guard who can score in a variety of ways. Defenders with some length have given him a little bit of trouble but Illinois doesn’t have a lot of size at their guard spots and he should be able to feast on that although Trent Frazier and Alfonso Plummer won’t back down.
As for Jean-Baptiste, he’s the emotional leader for this UTC squad. When he’s on, he’s really on but sometimes when he’s off he struggles to hit a shot but that certainly doesn’t deter him from shooting which is what you love about him because he’s never afraid to take any shot regardless if he’s struggling or not.
Outside of these three main players for Chattanooga, the “others” will be extremely important as well. When I say “others” I mean their role players like Darius Banks who averaged only 8 points per game but is more than capable of taking advantage of a favorable matchup and putting the ball in the basket as he scored 15+ points five times this season.
You also have to look at a couple of streaky shooters for this Mocs team as well in AJ Caldwell and Grant Ledford.
Caldwell is a sniper but he hasn’t been as consistent as we’ve seen him in years past shooting just 34% from three-point range this year but look out if he gets hot, he can catch fire in a hurry. He won’t score a ton but he can hit a couple of clutch three’s when you need it the most.
For Ledford, he’s another player that can really shoot it but he’s a little more than strictly a three-point shooter. He averaged only five points per game but he’s shaken loose a couple of times this season where he scored 18 against Covenant, 13 against Furman, and 25 against ETSU where he displayed not only his long-range shooting but his mid-range game as well.
The other guys that will be pivotal in this game will be the backup bigs in Josh Ayeni and Avery Diggs who will be used to spell De Sousa as well as to throw a fresh big body at Kofi Cockburn.
In case you want to know more about the Fighting Illini check out my conversation with Jeremy Werner of the Illiniinquirer.com
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