2024-25 Chattanooga Mocs Men's Basketball
Game 36 – Bradley – March 25, 2025
National Invitation Tournament – Quarterfinals
Carver Arena – Peoria, Ill.
Postgame Notes
 
GENERAL GAME INFO
Game Duration: 2:03
Attendance: 4,954
Officials: Tyler Kumpf, Jason Baker, Ervin Wilson
 
TEAM RECORDS
Chattanooga: 27-9
Bradley: 28-9
 
COACH RECORDS
Chattanooga: Dan Earl (Penn State '97)
Overall (10th): 139-177
at UTC (3rd): 66-38
 
SERIES HISTORY
All-Time Meetings: 4
Chattanooga leads the all-time series 3-1 (H: 1-0; A: 2-1; N: 0-0).
 
HISTORIC RECORDS
All-Time Program Record: 1,451-1,153 (.554)
Division I Era (since '77-78): 906-584 (.605)
 
NIT RECORDS
NIT Appearance: 5th (first since four straight from 1984-87)
NIT Record: 6-4 (.600)
Best NIT Finish/Run: 2025 NIT Semifinals
 
TEAM & GAME NOTES
∙ Chattanooga defeated No. 3 Bradley 67-65 in the NIT Quarterfinal Round inside the Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois… UTC earns a trip to the NIT Final Four in Indianapolis… UTC is now 27-9… Bradley ends its season at 28-9.
 
∙ Chattanooga's 27 wins this season is second most in program history… ties 2021-22's total for the last time with 27+… UTC has now won 15 of the last 16 games.

- 12th road win ties the school record originally set in 2021-22... 10 straight road victories is a program record.
 
∙ Chattanooga will play in April for the first time in program history… the first active SoCon member to play postseason basketball in an NCAA sanctioned event… the Mocs first-ever trip to the NIT Semifinal Round.
 
∙ Today's March 25 contest marks the latest game in a single season in UTC program history… surpassed the March 24, 1985 NIT Quarterfinal date at Louisville.
 
∙ Today's game is No. 36 on the season… first time in program history reaching 36… played 35 games five different times (MR: 2021-22).

- 6th win when trailing by 10+ at some point this season with four coming on the road: 20-Wofford (1st) - 12 at half; 16-at Furman (1st) - 13 (2nd); 16-at Bradley (1st) - 13 at half; 12-at ETSU (1st); 11-TSU (1st) & 11-at MTSU (1st).

- Huff (552), Bonham (512) & Wieland (481) are the 6th Mocs trio to score 400 points each for a single season:
1973-74: Wayne Golden-507, Walter "Moose" McGary-421 & William Gordon-420
1975-76: Wayne Golden-585, William Gordon-478 & Kevin Gray-454
1988-89: Daren Chandler-541, Benny Green-412 & Chris Behrends-409
1991-92: LaVert Threats-472, Keith Nelson-467 & Tim Brooks-427
2019-20: Matt Ryan-507, Ramon Vila-441 & David Jean-Baptiste-417

PLAYER NOTES
Honor Huff, Jr.-G
- 21 points on 8-17 from the field including 5-13 3pt.
- Team high in points and tied for lead in assists with three.
- 134:10 played out of a possible 135:00 over three NIT games (44.7 min/gm).
- Most points in the first two years of a Mocs career with 1,127... passes Derrick Kirce '91 who had 1,113 over the 1990 and '91 campaigns after transferring from Georgia.
 
Trey Bonham, Sr.-G
- 17 points, all in the second half. 
- 5-12 FG shooting, 4-8 3pt and 3-3 FT.
- 2nd on the squad with six rebounds.

Latif Diouf, Fr.-F
- Team-high seven boards and tied for lead in assists.
- Three offensive rebounds in 11:47 of clock time was one less than Bradley had as a team all game.
 
QUOTES
Head Coach Dan Earl
Opening statement after 87-72 win over Dayton.
"First of all, ton of credit to Coach Wardle and Bradley. They're a heck of a team and hard to play. I played against Coach (Wardle) back in the day so we were joking around a little bit before the game, but they are a very good basketball team and in the first half, I wrote it up to the guys on our board, they manhandled us. Every which way they were more physical on the defensive end getting into us and then on the offensive end as well just doing what they wanted. I thought we showed a lot of heart and a lot of resiliency and a lot of toughness coming back and just competing in th second half. Super proud of our guys and it was another one of those games where I don't even know what happened and what scenario, but we did enough to get it done. We fouled late, which obviously worked out in our favor, and all around just proud of our guys."

On not allowed Duke Deen to get off a potential game-tying shot.
"Our default is to foul with under six seconds if we're up by three. You say that, but then stuff goes on in the game where I've seen just about everything happen. Sometimes if you think they have unbelievable rebounders you don't want to do it, so we told them where if they have an opportunity to foul where Deen can't get a shot attempt off in the process to do that and it played into our hand quite well. They then obviously went with the making the first missing the second strategy and as you know sometimes guys will try to miss and just miss the rim completely or what have you. We then miss a free throw on the other end which gave them a chance to throw up a long one, but it worked out. No one really has that down to a science completely."

On turning around a poor start to the night from three-point range.
"I did think it would just naturally come back up, but credit to Bradley again, they were physical and that were pushing away on our shooters a lot. They didn't necessarily limit us from taking them, but they were tough shots and that had a lot to do with Bradley. We missed a couple that we may typically make, but they were playing tremendous defense. The other thing is we were constantly coming to get the ball, and I'm proud of our guys because when it gets to be a heated game, you figure 'I gotta go get it' rather than cutting or at times driving the ball north-south and getting some action towards the rim and then making a good decisions once you're down there. I thought we did a much better job in the second half of getting power towards the rim and then making good decisions."

Trey Bonham-Sr., G
On him being the one to make the clutch threes in this game.
"Usually we go to other people to make the threes and I'm just the guy going downhill, but my teammates had all the confidence in me that I was gonna make those shots. They boosted my head up those last four minutes and in that last media timeout telling me it was my time, so that led me to have the confidence to shot it."

On the team's feeling at halftime and how they turned things around.
"We've actually been in this predicament many times this year before. I think there was like a three or four game stretch where we were down 15+ at every halftime and we still stayed together and won those games. We knew in the locker room that 15 points was nothing. We came out on that 5-0 run and cut it down to an eight-point lead just like that in less than a minute. We know what we have to do, it shouldn't have to take Coach (Earl) coming in there talking to us. We already knew they were manhandling us and we talked before he came in and knew what we had to do."

Honor Huff-Jr., G
On how tonight's win feels.
"It feels amazing; it's exhilarating. The fans here, we have a small little section right there in the corner, they showed out today and they're all excited. Just to do it for them and for this team— we just want to keep playing so this is a great feeling to be able to go to something as special as the final four of the NIT."

On the team coming out on a mission after halftime.
"We went in the locker room and actually talked among ourselves for about ten minutes. He (Coach Earl) didn't come in for a long time, and when he did he said, 'I'm not gonna yell. You've guys gotta make a decision because they're man handling us. What are you gonna do about it?' That's all he said. So then when we came out, what we said in the huddle coming out the second half was, let's make them call a timeout within the first couple of minutes. Sure enough, Trey (Bonham) had five-straight and boom, timeout. That's what we wanted. That already set the tone for us and built our momentum a little bit because that's what we intended to do and we did it effectively. Shoutout to my teammates, shoutout to my coaches because that was a group effort."

On tonight's game being fun.
"That was fun, you just love playing in games like that. Credit to Bradley and to their amazing team. Obviously Duke Deen is incredible and I grabbed him after the game to talk to him and give him his flowers. Just a hell of a career for him. We've been in these situations before with MTSU, Wofford and Furman in conference, when we're down we just gotta thug it out and fight it out. I think we do a great job at doing that because we have a mature group to be able to do it."

On that early second half turnaround being the difference.
"They really could've extended it even further than what it was if we didn't do that. I think we did a great job at responding and that's what Coach Earl said was we did a great job at responding. Bash (Wieland) did something funny after the end of the game just now where he wrote 'manhandle this' on the whiteboard since that's what Coach Earl said they were doing to us at halftime. That just shows our team and our camaraderie and our will to win. We don't wanna go down and we don't wanna lose and I think we showed that tonight."