John Shulman kept glancing over at the television in his oceanfront hotel room in Puerto Rico to see Davidson guard Stephen Curry launching shot after shot to keep the Wildcats in the game at Oklahoma.

The preseason All-American attempted 29 field goals and 14 free throws in Davidson’s 82-78 loss and offered a familiar concept for Shulman: Get the basketball to your playmakers.

“We have to make sure our offensive guys are touching the ball,” the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach said Wednesday via cell phone. “If we can beat initial pressure, we’ll be able to get into an offense for the first time this year. That’s a neat concept — to get to do what you practice every day.”

Beating that full-court pressure has been a problem and will be an issue again today when UTC (0-2) faces No. 13 Memphis at 4:30 p.m. in the Puerto Rico Tipoff.

“You may see teams that really press three or four times a year,” Shulman said. “We open our season against three of the best pressure teams in America.

“Hopefully we’ll handle Memphis’ press better than we handled Missouri’s.”

Preseason All-SoCon forward Nicchaeus Doaks took five shots and attempted eight free throws against Missouri and finished with 16 points. All-SoCon guard Stephen McDowell took 10 shots and no free throws on his way to eight points. They ranked first and second respectively last year in shots attempted and scoring for UTC.

“We need to get Doaks and Khalil (Hartwell) established,” McDowell said while riding back to the hotel after practice. “We have to focus on doing what we do.”

On Wednesday, the Mocs had a one-hour film session and a two-hour practice at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico. The new venue is a massive upgrade from where UTC played in the 2005 Puerto Rico Shootout, when the Mocs shared a locker room with pigeons at the Mario Morales Coliseum in 2005.

“It’s nice to see the scenery, but we understand this is a business trip,” McDowell said. “It’s a lot of practice and correcting our mistakes. It’s a lot of small things.”

The defensive errors center on positioning and rebounding. The offensive mistakes revolve around turnovers and execution.

They are common early season miscues that Shulman describes as “fixable.” Memphis, however, is far from an ideal opponent when corrections need to be made. The Tigers (2-0) were a last-second 3-pointer away from winning last year’s national champions and have three potential NBA players in the lineup.

“They’re ranked ahead of Tennessee — that’s how loaded they are,” Shulman said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t outplay them or outwork them. It just means they have really good players.”

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