2024-25 Chattanooga Mocs Men's Basketball
Game 1 – at USC – November 4, 2024
Galen Center – Los Angeles, Calif.
Postgame Notes & Quotes
 
GENERAL NOTES
Game Duration: 1:48
Attendance: 3,294
Officials: Randy Richardson, Deldre Carr, Scott Arbogast
 
TEAM NOTES
- Chattanooga opens the season 0-1 after a 77-51 defeat at USC… Trojans open 1-0… first time Mocs opened at a 'Power' conference opponent since an 82-69 win at Tennessee on 11/11/2016.
- All-time record 1,426-1,145… 878-575 in Division I era (since 1977-78).
- Now 9-4 in season-opening games over the last 13 dating back to 2012-13… 1-2 over the last three with both losses coming on the road.
- The season-opener for both teams featured a combined 23 newcomers on the two rosters… 13 new Trojans… 10 new Mocs.
- First game as a Big Ten member for USC… also the first game under head coach Eric Musselman who came to Southern Cal following a quality stint at Arkansas.
- Streak of 5+ 3PT FGs extends to 69-straight games… began at 2022-23 season opener… every game under Dan Earl… second-longest active streak (Oral Roberts, 126)… 22^nd longest streak all-time in DI.
 
PLAYER NOTES
- Honor Huff surpassed 900 career points… finished with game-high 17 points… went 5-of-15 from the floor… all five made FG's were from deep… 16^th career game at UTC with four or more made 3PT FGs.
- Sean Cusano made first collegiate start in fourth career game… opened the contest with a dunk just 17 seconds in after UTC won the tip… finished with five points.
- Trey Bonham made 70^th career start… 106^th career game played… 23^rd game and 21^st start at UTC.
- Latif Diouf earned the start in first collegiate game as true freshman… scored four points.

SERIES NOTES

UTC All-Time vs. USC	Record	Pct.
Overall (Second Meeting)	0-2	.000
at Southern Cal	0-1	.000
at Chattanooga	0-0	.000
Neutral Games	0-1	.000

 
COACH NOTES

Dan Earl (Penn State '97)	Record	Pct.
Overall (10th)	112-169	.399
at Chattanooga (3rd)	39-30	.565
vs. Southern Cal	0-1	.000

 
POSTGAME QUOTES
Dan Earl, Head Coach
On USC's physicality.
"They're a good team. They're long and athletic and every position and they're physical. They were physical with us on both sides of the ball. They drove down hill, got into the post and the lane, but then on the defensive end as well they made it difficult for us to run an offense. We were trying to cut and you have to cut hard and with a purpose and force the officials to call fouls, and they were just chucking us off our cuts and physical every which way. Unfortunately that played a big role in this game. Credit to them for playing us that hard. I'd love to say to you that we just missed shots, I think we shot 6-for-34 or something like that from three, but that wasn't all it. We missed shots but we also weren't able to get good looks for a large portion of the game, and that's a credit to USC."
 
On USC trying to take away Trey Bonham and Honor Huff.
"They made it difficult on Trey and Honor and their length bothered us. Those are two guys that can get downhill, but then we have to make really good decisions when we get downhill. When's it time to score a layup or kick it out or dump it off to our bigs? We have to do a better job there."
 
On USC's strong end to the first half to take a double-digit lead into the break.
"I thought defensively we did some really decent things in the first half. In the second half I got away from us, and I just talked to the team about this, even though they're building the lead and it may seem like it's getting away from you, you have to stay disciplined on defense. We did not do that in the second half. In the first half, I thought we did a decent job of mucking it up and making them score over us and staying pretty disciplined, we just couldn't get it going on offense so we didn't have a ton of points. It was a manageable game at halftime but then USC just played sharper in the second and we didn't do what we needed to defensively."
 
On the team not hitting on threes tonight.
"We missed a lot of them in the second half, and hopefully we aren't going to shoot this bad ever again, but some of those in the second half we had some really good looks. We kicked it out, we threw one more pass and were just all around pretty unselfish. The ball just didn't drop. But again, it'd be easy to say that was the difference in the game but I think USC's physicality on both sides of the ball was the main difference. You  have to give them credit for that."
 
Honor Huff, Jr.-G
On USC focusing on guarding him and Trey Bonham the entire game.
"We didn't really run our sets that got everybody involved. Obviously the key for a lot of teams this season is going to be them trying to stop me and Trey, but I think we did a poor job of setting everything up to play, and that starts with me and Trey. We did a terrible job with that, and minus 25 from me is abysmal and disgusting. Definitely gotta learn from this for our next game."
 
On the game not slowing down at any point in the night.
"In the first half I thought we played pretty well and stuck to our principles on the defensive end. On offense we were still kind of struggling but we were in there a little bit, but then the second half we just kind of threw it all out the window and you could see our discipline on the defensive end wasn't the same."
 
On USC's physicality.
"He (Coach Earl) just talked to us about that. When we were running our plays and cutting they were just pushing us off our spots and pushing the bigs off the elbow where they were supposed to catch it. Any mishap in our plays is obviously going to mess up everything and won't let us fluidly run the rest of our set. That's what really hindered us and it's something we'll have to learn from and work to get tougher at. They were just the tougher team for most of the game and that's really what propelled them to this win."