Upstate Adds Notre Dame To Men's Hoops Schedule
9/18/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Sept. 18, 2008
Spartanburg, S.C. - With one game remaining to be filled on the 2008-09 schedule, USC Upstate head coach Eddie Payne has added a road game at Notre Dame to an already difficult slate of games in the program's second year playing on the NCAA Division I level.
Upstate will travel to South Bend on Nov. 16 to take on the Irish at 7:30 p.m. in the Joyce Center. The game will be the second of the season for the Spartans following Upstate's season opener at Georgia on Nov. 14. The Spartans will play at South Carolina on Nov. 22 after the Notre Dame contest.
Notre Dame finished the 2007-08 season with a 24-8 overall record and a 14-4 mark in the Big East Conference. The Irish finished in a tie for second in regular season Big East play and lost to Marquette in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament. Notre Dame was selected as one of the 64 teams in the NCAA Tournament and defeated George Mason in the opening round before falling to Washington State in the second round.
Upstate is coming off of a 7-23 season in 2007-08, a season that saw the Spartans travel more than 20,000 miles round trip from Spartanburg to play its 30-game schedule. Upstate played in eight states and five time zones last season, and recorded its first-ever win over a Division I opponent with a 58-56 victory at SMU in December.
The Spartans will travel more than 17,000 miles round trip from Spartanburg this year, playing in 11 states and three time zones. In addition to a grueling 20-game A-Sun schedule, Upstate will take on non-conference foes Notre Dame, Gonzaga, Georgia, South Carolina, Boston College, Duquesne, Fresno State, Saint Louis, Southern and either Liberty or Northern Colorado in the final game of the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic.
