Feb. 1, 2009

Box Score

Jacksonville, Fla. - Nick Schneiders turned in another strong performance against Jacksonville and USC Upstate played inspired basketball for 40 minutes to take a 70-59 victory over A-Sun leader Jacksonville Sunday afternoon in Swisher Gymnasium.

Upstate improved to 5-16 overall and 4-8 in the A-Sun with the win. It marked the Spartans' first road win in the A-Sun this season and the second win in a row playing on Super Bowl Sunday. Jacksonville, which claimed an 82-72 overtime win over ETSU Friday night to move into sole possession of first place in the A-Sun, falls to 12-9 overall and 10-2 in the league. The Upstate win also snapped Jacksonville's nine-game winning streak.

The 11-point loss to Upstate was Jacksonville's second-largest margin of defeat this season, short of No. 21 Ohio State's 13-point victory in December. Prior to Sunday's loss to the Spartans, Jacksonville's next biggest loss was nine points at No. 18 Georgetown in November.

"We have played very good basketball in the first half of nearly every game this year, but just haven't been able to finish," said Upstate head coach Eddie Payne. "That was a big challenge at halftime, finishing the game. We had guys make good plays and we took care of the ball. We did the best job as we have all year at getting the ball inside on a consistent basis. And, that was Nick's best game of his career on the road. You throw all that together and what you have is an exceptionally good win against a team that was on a big-time roll."

Schneiders finished with 16 points, three rebounds and two blocked shots to lead four Spartans in double figures. His 16-point effort came against a physical defense and on the heels of his career-high 22-point effort against the Dolphins earlier this season in January.

"They have a hard time guarding him (Nick)," said Payne. "They elected not to double him much. He got down there one-on-one and had success."

Mezie Uzochukwu finished with 15 points, one off his career-high, while Josh Chavis and Gabor Boros finished with 13 and 10 points, respectively. Bobby Davis, who fouled out with 3:13 to play in the game, added eight points, 11 rebounds and three assists.

Upstate turned in a near flawless performance Sunday in defeating Jacksonville. The Spartans shot 53 percent from the field, just a shade under 42 percent from the three-point arc, and almost 71 percent from the free throw line. In addition, the Spartans out-rebounded Jacksonville, 33-25, for the game. The Dolphins entered the game with a plus-12 rebounding margin in A-Sun play and plus-seven overall.

Perhaps it was Upstate's will to put Friday night's disappointing loss at North Florida behind itself and come out with intensity against JU. Perhaps it was JU suffering from the proverbial letdown after taking an 82-72 win over ETSU Friday night that put Jacksonville on top of the A-Sun standings. Perhaps it was a little of both. Either way, Upstate opened the game on a 13-2 run to put the Dolphins down early in the game.

After Jacksonville had cut the Upstate lead to 5-2, the Spartans held the Dolphins scoreless for nearly four minutes. The JU scoring drought enabled Upstate to open its double digit lead.

Upstate maintained its double-digit lead for most of the half until Jacksonville held the Spartans scoreless for the final 3:27 of the half. The scoring drought enabled the Dolphins to rattle off four-straight points to cut the Spartan lead to 30-22 at halftime.

Uzochukwu and Schneiders led Upstate offensively in the half. Uzochukwu finished with eight points while Schneiders added nine points. Ayron Hardy and Marcus Allen each had five for JU.

Gabor Boros and Josh Chavis nailed three-pointers after the break to turn an eight-point lead into a 14-point advantage early in the second half. The Spartans pushed the lead to 16 on Uzochukwu's 18-footer.

Jacksonville worked to cut the Upstate lead to single digits, trimming the lead to nine, 51-42, on Evan Jefferson's bucket with 8:34 to play. However, Upstate ran off three-straight points to push the lead to 12 with 7:39 to play.

Jacksonville rattled off four-straight points to cut the Upstate lead to eight, but Upstate again put an end to the Dolphin spurt, matching the Dolphins with four unanswered points to push the lead back to 12, 58-46, with 3:41 to play.

Jacksonville would not go away, though, as the Dolphins outscored Upstate 6 -1 over the next minute and a half to cut the lead to 59-52. It would be as close as Jacksonville would get as Upstate battled to keep the Dolphins at bay.

"We knew coming in that Jacksonville was a very good team," said Uzochukwu. "We knew they were not going to stop playing hard. Over the course of the season, we have built up leads in the first half and for some reason in the second half we allowed the other team to come back. We made some key stops, hit some jumpers and didn't allow them to come back."

"It shows other people in our league that we are a team capable of doing that (winning against the top teams in the conference)," said Payne. "I don't know if our own perception of our team is as high as everybody else's, and certainly this will help with that."