Chattanooga is a basketball program that has deep roots of tradition and success as an NCAA Division I Basketball member, and when the Mocs did something no SoCon programs have and only a few mid-major programs have managed to accomplish by winning the NIT crown, it was a great accomplishment for the league in the grand scheme of things.
Though the Mocs didn't achieve their ultimate goal of winning their way to the NCAA Tournament by claiming a Southern Conference Tournament title, Chattanooga did end up establishing a new school record for wins, with 29 after going on to claim the NIT crown with an 85-84 overtime win over UC Irvine.
At Southern Conference media day earlier this month, the Mocs were selected as the favorite to win the regular-season crown by the league's head coaches, edging out Furman, by four points (77-73) in the preseason poll, however, Mocs head coach Dan Earl and staff have been in the lab during the off-season trying to figure out how to replace 78.8% of his scoring from a year ago, and that includes having to replace five starters and two of the most dynamic scoring guards in program history, in both Honor Huff and Trey Bonham. Bonham is out of eligibility, while Huff, who set the school single-season record for threes made (131) last season, has moved on to play his final season at West Virginia.
The good news is head coach Dan Earl, who heads into his fourth season as the head coach of the Mocs, is much more familiar with the transfer portal, and how to use it to the Mocs' benefit. You could see that last season, as the Earl dipped into the portal and found some NCAA Division II products like Garrison Keeslar, Frank Champion and Jack Kostel, who were instrumental in helping the Mocs to a regular-season SoCon title last season along with being a big help in helping Chattanooga cut down the nets at Hinkle FieldHouse on the campus of Butler University after claiming the 2025 NIT title by a single point in early April. The lone NCAA Division I transfer that helped the Mocs was Bellarmine transfer
Now, Earl has procured what, at least on paper, appears to be another extremely strong signing class out of the portal, with a good mix of lower division players as well as NCAA Division I veterans, as the Mocs look to repeat their regular-season title run of a year ago, while also claiming their first
"I didn't have that much experience with it per-se because I was at VMI and at that time they didn't take transfers in and now that's changed a little bit for VMI over the years as well but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, but it helps with time and you're just trying to make calculated decisions and that's what makes it so difficult now is because you don't know how the rules are going to change so it can be tough to make decisions sometimes," head coach Dan Earl said.
Another thing that Earl looks for when it comes to acquiring players from the transfer portal is a certain type of skill level, which we saw in former players like big man Jake Stephens as well as others like Keeslar just this past season.
Is there a particular skill that coach Earl looks for when getting a player from the transfer portal? One thing that is irrefutable and that is coach Earl seems to attract intelligent players that also happen to be outstanding shooters and passers.
"We have kind of a saying or mantra that we go by...see, share and shoot...we want them to see the floor and be able to make decisions and I think it all comes down to decision and we want guys that are able to make good decisions with the ball as well as be unselfish and be able to shoot and not be bashful about shooting the three...We want guys that can consistently make threes and so we certainly want skilled guys."
"There are some obstacles to finding those guys sometimes though... A-sometimes it's hard to identify them and B-sometimes when you take skilled guys like we do...you're giving up something and that is we're not getting LeBron James who is also super skilled but also is 260 or whatever he is and can jump over the moon and sometimes some of the guys we get are thinner for the position they are supposed to play or smaller for a position they are supposed to play or else they would be going someplace else."
A little like last season, the Mocs have a nice mix of both lower level and Division I guys. One of the most impressive of those "gets" from the transfer portal is Teddy Washington Jr., who comes to the Mocs program from SEMO where he was a standout for the Red Wolves last season, as they would end up making a run all the way to the conference title game before losing to SIU-Edwardsville.
“Teddy [Washington] is going to help us immensely this season, but particularly on the defensive end of the floor,” head coach Dan Earl said.
“Defense is something that has always stuck out to me…It’s how I had to get on the floor as a freshman,” Washington said at SoCon media day earlier this month at SoCon media day. “It became something I enjoyed doing and kind of took pride in doing,” Washington added.
Offensively Washington is no slouch either. He comes off a season which saw him also average in double figures, as he comes off a 2024-25 season which saw 13.9. PPG and 5.4 RPG.
“I think the other thing that really stands out about Teddy and his overall game is his ability to rebound the basketball as a 6-2 guard…He averaged over five boards per game last season and having a guard that can rebound like that shows really two things and that is that his overall basketball ability as a complete player is elite, but I think the most important part of that is the second part of that, which is his desire to have the ball and desire to get the ball for his team,” Earl said.
For Washington, it’s his sixth school in six years, and each one has brought a unique experience. If there is a positive to the whole transfer portal era thing, I suppose that would have to be it, which is that each stop has in some way provided a different life experience.
The other pieces brought in through the transfer portal are certainly no slouches either. Billy Smith (Bellarmine) and Brennan Watkins (North Dakota State) are a pair of guys that will add even more veteran leadership to Earl’s backcourt this season.
Watkins is obviously a guy that Earl is familiar with being that he was one of his last recruits when Earl was still coaching at VMI. Now the two are reunited once again in the Scenic City, keeping alive the string of players to join the program from Lexington, as Watkins now becomes the fourth former Keydets player to exchange the red and gold for the navy blue and gold.
The former VMI guard has battled injuries and has seen his role change since he transferred the first time, as he went from Lexington to Fargo. During his time playing for Andrew Wilson back in the 2023-24 season, Watkins was looked at as one of the team’s primary scorers.
Watkins started all 22 games he played in during the 2023-24 season with the Keydets before spending the final month on the bench with what turned out to be a season-ending injury. He would, however, end up closing out the season as VMI’s leading scorer, adding 15.2 PPG to go with 3.0 APG, while also knocking 47 triples on the season.
He ended up playing a key role for an NDSU team that finished the season with 21 wins and was a team that was among the most prolific in the nation when it came to shooting the three. Unlike his previous season at VMI, which saw him serve a role as being one of the team's primary scorers, he wouldn't be asked to do that in Fargo.
He ended the season shooting a solid 36% (39-of-109) from three-point range and enjoyed his best outing of the season against St. Thomas out of Minnesota, as he posted 18 points in an 89-85 home loss to the Tommies in the conference opener.
All told, Watkins would end up posting double-figure scoring performances in a total of six games during the season. The 6-0 guard from Kearney, MO., ended up playing primarily point guard for the Bison last season, and finished second on the team in total assists, with 84 helpers on the season (2.9 APG). He will add both experience and shooting acumen to the Mocs backcourt for the upcoming season.
Most of the excitement surrounding Smith has to do not only with his leadership, but also his ability. Smith arrives in the Scenic City as a junior and will have two years of eligibility remaining in the Navy Blue and Gold. Smith a 6-7 wing guard/forward that can flat outshoot the basketball.
Smith is an intriguing addition for the Mocs, and he might just be the best shooter that Earl has added from the transfer portal since arriving at Chattanooga three years ago. The Indianapolis, IND., native was an All-Atlantic Sun performer last season while with the Knights, finishing 13th in the league in scoring, averaging 14.0 PPG.
He also ranked second in the A-SUN in three-point field goal percentage (38.7%) last season, while ranking sixth overall, conference in field goal percentage (44.5%) and fifth in three-pointers made-per-game (2.7).
With Bash Wieland having moved on, Smith, who came from the same program as Wieland, Smith will now look to continue the strong pipeline that the Mocs have established with Bellarmine over the past couple of seasons.
Another key on the wing for Dan Earl’s team this season will be wing Sebastian Hartmann, who comes to UTC from Munich, Germany and he will add another excellent shooter to the fold for Earl and the Mocs.
Hartmann came to Chattanooga from Eastern Washington, where he averaged 9.3 PPG and 4.2 RPG, while also finishing the season with 1.6 APG. Hartmann was a late pickup in the recruiting process, and he also will add some sneaky good athleticism.
Another unique, but talented find from the portal's lower levels is Pittsburg State transfer point guard Jordan Frison. Frison ended the 2024-25 season leading the Gorillas in scoring average, as he finished the season averaging 18.4 PPG and averaged a team-leading 6.1 APG.
Frison finished the season as the Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletic Association Player of the Year. About the only thing Frison struggled to do last season was shoot the three, finishing the season connecting on just 30.3% (33-of-109) from long range during the 2024-25 season. His quickness and scoring ability will enhance what figures to be an already-strong backcourt.
The Mocs will also have one of the more interesting additions in the backcourt in the SoCon heading into the upcoming season, in Jikari Johnson, who has been a player that was under-recruited out of high school, and yet he has overachieved at every level in which he was played at in college.
Johnson could be an important piece for the Mocs this season, as he comes from a Trevecca Nazarene program, where he was coached by Kevin Carroll, who is the newest head coach at Lipscomb. Carroll was once an assistant of Earl's during his time as VMI's head coach. However, instead of joining forces with Carroll at Lipscomb, Johnson opted to join up with Earl at Chattanooga to continue his career at the NCAA Division I level.
Johnson, who averaged 20.7 PPG at Trevecca Nazarene, should be an instant impact player in the Southern Conference this season. He has vertical athleticism and can play above the rim, giving the Mocs an element they were somewhat missing last season as good as they were. Johnson was one of three Mocs that was selected to the preseason All-SoCon team.
As far as other backcourt additions are concerned, keep an eye on this season include some young, up-and-coming talent from the high school ranks, as both Tate Darner and Zach Bleshoy join the Mocs program. Darner is a 6-4 guard out of Marietta, GA., who was rated as a three-star recruit by both rivals and 247Sports.
Tate’s father, Linc Darner, is the head coach of NCAA Division II member Tampa after a five-year stint as the head coach at Green Bay, where he led the Phoenix to the 2016 NCAA Tournament.Darner is both a prolific scorer and an elite shooter and is ranked as one of the top shooting guards coming out of the state of Sunshine State. Darner chose Chattanooga among nine offers he held during the recruiting process, choosing to play for the Mocs over programs like Jacksonville, Stetson, Youngstown State, Dartmouth, North Florida, Upstate and Boston University.
Heading into his senior season, Bleshoy was ranked as the 20th best prospect in the Peach State, including being ranked as the fourth-best point guard in the entire state.
Bleshoy chose Chattanooga over 11 offers he held coming out of high school, choosing the Mocs over programs like Boston University, Kennesaw State, NJIT, Murray State, Southern Illinois, Towson, Boston and Ohio University.
The Marietta native ranks as a three-star recruit and stands a better chance of seeing court time this season because of his versatility, but like Darner, will likely redshirt.
Not only has Earl added some nice pieces to the backcourt that should be instant impact performers, he's also gone about and supplemented the front court, which should be among the best in the SoCon this coming season.
It all starts with a guy affectionately known to Mocs teammates and fans known as "Big Maple." Collin Mulholland's progression last March and early April was easy to see, as Chattanooga made its historic run to the NIT crown.
The 6-9 forward/center redshirt sophomore from Kitchener, Canada, logged action in 36 games, which included making five starts last season, which all came during UTC's historic NIT championship run.
Mulholland would see his stock rise with each start, and without him, the Mocs aren't cutting down the nets in Hinkle Fieldhouse in early April. That's a major reason that Mulholland found himself as one of three Chattanooga players to garner preseason all-conference recognition.
But there's a lot to Mulholland's game, and it isn't just his ability to score the basketball in a variety of different ways that makes him such a versatile player, but rather the completeness to his game. As both a passer and facilitator of Earl's motion offense, he's just as vital as Jake Stephens was three years ago, or even a guy like Jan Zidek was to the Mocs two years ago.
Every young player has that moment when the light suddenly turns on for them as an NCAA Division I college basketball player, and for Mulholland, his moment came right around Thanksgiving, when the Mocs hosted Tennessee State and Bryant as a part of a multi-team Tournament at McKenzie Arena (The Roundhouse).
"The Coke Classic is probably the big moment when it all came together for me.…I guess that's the moment when the confidence for me shifted a little and I got little bit of a lift....I had two good games then and wasn't just like scoring, but I was also grabbing rebounds and making some good passes so that was probably the moment it started to click for me," Colin Mulholland said at SoCon Media Day earlier this month.
The Coke Classic proved to be a jump-off point and a harbinger of things to come for Big Maple, as he posted 10 points, two rebounds and posted a block in 16 minutes off the bench in an 85-78 win over Tennessee State. In the ensuing game against Bryant, Mulholland provided the identical stat line of 10 points, two rebounds, and one block in 16 minutes off the bench. That's as efficient as it gets. The only difference between the two games was that he was 5-for-8 from the field in the 84-76 win over Bryant, whereas he was 3-for-6 in the seven-point win over Tennessee State.
His 19-point effort in the NIT Championship Game win over UC Irvine came up huge, and without Big Maple, the Mocs don’t even win game one of the tournament at Middle Tennessee State.
That’s because “Big Maple” scored a career-high 21 points in UTC’s 109-103 triple overtime win over the Blue Raiders. He contributed a strong 19 points in the championship game against the UC Irvine Anteaters, which was a game that saw the Anteaters purposefully playing off the redshirt freshman big man, and eventually, in some big moments, Big Maple would make UC Irvine pay.
It certainly wasn't his best shooting performance from the perimeter of the season for the big red head from the perimeter, but his 5-for-17 performance from long range in the championship game was just enough to make the Anteaters pay in the championship game.
For the season, Mulholland continued to improve his shooting from beyond the arc, and in that way, he's very comparable to Jake Stephens early in his career at VMI, who continued to perfect his shooting and threat as a lethal shooter from beyond the arc. Mulholland completed the season a solid 35.2% (31-of-88) from long range. In the crucial win over the Blue Raiders in the NIT, Mulholland ended that contest by connecting on 6-of-10 shots from the field, including a 3-for-7 from three-point range.
It certainly wasn't his best shooting performance from the perimeter of the season for the big red head from the perimeter, but his 5-for-17 performance from long range in the championship game was just enough to make the Anteaters pay in the championship game.
For the season, Mulholland continued to improve his shooting from beyond the arc, and in that way, he's very comparable to Jake Stephens early in his career at VMI, who continued to perfect his shooting and threat as a lethal shooter from beyond the arc. Mulholland completed the season a solid 35.2% (31-of-88) from long range. In the crucial win over the Blue Raiders in the NIT, Mulholland ended that contest by connecting on 6-of-10 shots from the field, including a 3-for-7 from three-point range.
Like Keeslar, Mulholland was a bit of an underrated passer this past season, and I think he also did a great job taking care of the basketball this past season, posting 51 assists and only 27 turnovers.Mulholland acknowledged the fact that his role in Earl's uniquely efficient motion offense fits his skill set almost perfectly, playing to his overall strengths as a player.
"I am very fortunate to be in an offense like this one because I am not that big man that is super-fast or super athletic and like I am not going to be catching a whole bunch of lobs or nothing like that, but the thing that I am naturally a little bit better at is court vision and passing and like shooting so this offense really fits the way I play," Mulholland said.
All told, Cusano would log time in 38 games, with four starts this past season. He finished the season with four double figure scoring performances, which included a season-high 16-point effort in UTC's 20-point win over NAIA Johnson University. He finished the game going 5-for-7 from the field, which included a 2-for-2 effort from three-point land.
Cusano would finish out his second season in a Mocs uniform by shooting 29.9% (20-of-67) from three-point land, while shooting 45.0% (58-of-129) from the field in 2024-25. Like Mulholland, I expect to see Cusano's game to also reach a higher level this season.
Cusano would finish out his second season in a Mocs uniform by shooting 29.9% (20-of-67) from three-point land, while shooting 45.0% (58-of-129) from the field in 2024-25. Like Mulholland, I expect to see Cusano's game to also reach a higher level this season.
Makai Richards is another player that ended up showing a huge upside, and as he got more comfortable with time in the lineup, you could tell he was developing into a pretty polished player that stands a great chance to perhaps even challenge for a starting spot. While that remains to be seen, he does give the Mocs an element of physicality and toughness underneath the basket, and he's also decent athletically.
Richards will have one season of eligibility after transferring into Chattanooga prior to the start of the 2024-25 season. Like Mulholland, the 6-10, 225-lb big man was especially big for the Mocs after Champion went out of the lineup with a season-ending knee injury just prior to the Southern Conference Tournament.
Richards raised more than a few eyebrows with his early-season performance against one of the perennial mid-major powers, in St. Mary’s, as the Pacific transfer would end up posting a season-high 19 points in what was an 86-74 loss to the Gaels. Richards would go 8-of-12 from the field, which included finishing the contest with one of his two made three-pointers on the season, as he finished 1-for-1 from long range.
As the season progressed, his role would end up reaching into the double-figure scoring column three more times during the season, posting 17 points in a solid win over Bryant, while finishing out the postseason with two more double-figure scoring efforts, posting 10 points in the SoCon Tournament quarterfinal win over Mercer, and added 10 points in UTC’s NIT semifinal win over Loyola-Chicago.
Another player with tremendous upside in the frontcourt heading into the 2025-26 season is Latif Diouf.
Like Richards, Diouf would see his role increase as the season progressed and then met with some adversity with a minor injury, however, would return late in the season to have an impact on Dan Earl’s winning formula.
The 6-9, 240-lb true freshman from Gouda, Netherlands started out the season as being one of the impact players in the paint for the Mocs while Champion worked his way back from an injury.
Diouf would start the first nine games of the season and would log action in a total of 31 games with nine starts and showed a very high skill level in his action on the floor this season. His passing skills are exceptional; however, he needs to work on improving his perimeter shooting during the off-season.
Diouf enjoyed his best scoring performance in the second game of the season against St. Mary’s, posting eight points in 20 minutes of action. Diouf finished the season averaging 3.1 PPG and 2.6 RPG, while posting an impressive overall field goal percentage of 63.8% (60-of-94) for the season.
Bowman was more of a late bloomer during his prep career, having an outstanding senior season, as he saw both minutes and offensive production increase. A good athlete and improving perimeter threat that has the potential to be a good defensive performer in the post for the Mocs, which could see him contribute minutes sooner rather than later for UTC.
Overall, this is a Chattanooga team that is dangerous and should again win 20 games and challenge to repeat its run as a the SoCon regular-season champions, as well as being a prime contender to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022 when the Mocs arrive at the Harrah's Cherokee Center in early March.
The final newcomer is 6-9 forward Joshua Bowman out of Huntsville, AL, who committed to Chattanooga last November. With Isaiah Ityaluk transferring out of the program to Chattanooga, Bowman could see action this season to provide added depth in the frontcourt for the Mocs.
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