Jan. 15, 2009

Final Stats

SPARTANBURG, S.C. - Down 36-30 with 14:05 left in the second half, the USC Upstate women's basketball team, which had fired 11 3-pointers in the opening 25 minutes, changed strategies, going down low to sophomore Chelsea McMillan (Quincy, Fla./Santa Fe C.C.), who banked in a shot as she was fouled. She finished the 3-point play and then proceeded to score 10 of the game's next 14 points, leading Upstate to a come-from-behind 59-54 win over Lipscomb at the Hodge Center on Thursday night.

McMillan took over the game for the Spartans (8-7 overall, 3-4 A-Sun), scoring a career-high 31 points and grabbing 14 rebounds for her first career double-double, also adding three blocked shots and two steals. She finished 10-of-13 (77 percent) from the field and 10-of-10 from the charity stripe.

"C-Mac not only kept us in the game, she totally dominated it in the second half," Upstate head coach Tammy George said. "She was great offensively, great defensively. She hit her free throws. She was dominant in the paint. She hit a key 3-pointer. It was just a great game."

After McMillan's 3-point play, Cree Nix hit a layup and junior Courtney Hawkins (Greer, S.C./Greer) responded with a jumper at the top of the key, making it 38-35. The two teams then traded three possessions each before McMillan blocked a Lady Bisons' shot. After a foul, freshman Kendra Wallace (Hurricane, W.Va./Nitro) found McMillan down low. She turned and hit a layup as she was fouled and then completed her second straight old-fashioned 3-point play, tying the game at 38 with 10:23 left.

The Lady Bisons (4-12 overall, 2-5 A-Sun) took two shots on their end, but couldn't convert and a rebound from sophomore Sam Frost (Baltimore, Md./North Greenville University) helped the Spartans push up the court. Wallace missed a fastbreak layup running up the court, but McMillan pulled the rebound down and after a missed layup of her own, she was fouled. She hit both free throws, giving Upstate a 40-38 lead with 9:43 left.

The lead was never relinquished, as the Lady Bisons missed a jumper that was pulled in by McMillan and then as the shot clock wound down on the Spartans' possession, McMillan got the ball at top of the right arc and fired a low-flying 3-pointer that fell through, giving Upstate a 43-38 lead. The Florida native later converted on another layup on a give from Wallace to put Upstate up by seven with 8:05 left, capping the team's 10-0 run.

"Everytime I got the ball, I was just like, `Please, lord, let it go in, because we needed it'" McMillan said. "I told the team, `If you throw it, I'll go get it.' The coaches have been telling me to widen my base and that's what I did tonight. I called for the ball and it worked out for us."

Lipscomb closed within two with 2:25 left after Jenna Bartsokas broke free on a fastbreak for an easy layup, but the Spartans answered back 19 seconds later with a stop-and-pop jumper from Hawkins. Two more free throws from McMillan made it a six-point game. The Lady Bisons cut the lead back to two at 56-54 with 18 seconds left after a 3-pointer from Chelsea Burroughs, but the last two of McMillan's 25 points of the second half came at the free-throw line. Good defense by the Spartans forced two late turnovers, icing the win.

Upstate jumped out to a 13-4 lead with 11:57 left in the first half after a 3-pointer from freshman Lesley Daniel (Collinwood, Tenn./Collinwood), but the Spartans fell victim to a hard-crashing Lipscomb squad that outrebounded Upstate, 30-12, in the first half, helping the Lady Bisons to go on a 26-12 run to close the half.

Consecutive 3-pointers from Burroughs gave Lipscomb a 14-13 lead with 9:52 left in the half, but Upstate built its lead back to four points after a layup from Frost with 7:28 left. Nix and Bartsokas each scored buckets to tie the game at 19 with 6:30 left in the half and the teams then fought through three ties before another Burroughs 3-pointer put Lipscomb up 28-25 with 2:06 left. A bucket from Nix with two seconds left gave the Bisons a 30-25 lead heading into halftime.

Hawkins finished with eight points, a rebound and an assist and Frost added seven points, six rebounds and a career-high four blocks. No other Spartan scored more than three points, but Daniel, junior Kolesia and senior Courtney Bradley (Columbia, S.C./Dutch Fork) each posted three assists.

"It was a very important win," McMillan said of the win against Lipscomb, who entered the game on a two-game winning streak that included a win over conference power Belmont. "We knew if we won that we could move up a couple spots in the conference standings and that's what motivated us. Even though we have won a couple games, other teams could look at us as just old USC Upstate and we wanted to prove something. So that's what motivated us."

Nix finished with 17 points and a career-high 13 rebounds to lead the Lady Bisons. Burroughs posted 12 points and four 3-pointers and Bartsokas added 10 points and three rebounds. After outrebounding the Spartans 30-12 in the first half, the Lady Bisons grabbed just 18 to the Spartans' 28 in the second stanza.

The Spartans get back on the court Saturday as they host Belmont at 4 p.m. in the Hodge Center as a part of a doubleheader with the men's team. The men tip at 1 p.m. against the Bruins.

Notes
- The Spartans are 6-8 all-time on Jan. 15.
- Freshman Kendra Wallace has hit 3-pointers in 13 of 15 games this season. With 31 3-pointers this season, Wallace is three 3-pointers shy of sophomore Tiffany Whiting's rookie mark of 34, which is sixth in the school's freshman record book.
- Freshman Lesley Daniel connected on a 3-pointer for the second time in as many games after she went seven games without a trifecta.
- Now with 26 blocked shots this season, sophomore Chelsea McMillan is currently tied for 11th in the school's single-season record book. She is four blocked shots from the top 10.
- With her three assists on Thursday, senior Courtney Bradley moved just five dimes shy of becoming the second player in school history to dish out 350 in a career.
- Until senior Ebony Johnson's free throw with 10 seconds left, the only players that scored in the second half for Upstate were sophomore Chelsea McMillan (25 points) and junior Courtney Hawkins (eight points).
- Sophomore Chelsea McMillan's 25 second-half points were a Division I era record for points in a half. The previous best was set by junior Courtney Hawkins, who poured in 24in the second half at Campbell on Feb. 25, 2008. Freshman Kendra Wallace had set the previous season-best with 22 in the second half against S.C. State on Jan. 6, 2009.