Jan. 21, 2010

Box Score

Jacksonville, Fla. - With head coach Eddie Payne back at the hotel suffering from flu-like symptoms and a 102 degree temperature, the USC Upstate men's basketball team came together with a dominant performance en route to a 64-50 victory over North Florida Thursday night in the UNF Arena.

With Payne not able to coach, assistant Kyle Perry took the reigns of the team and led the Spartans to the 14-point victory and the team's second straight win.

"Our kids played well and it was just a good team win," said Perry. "I said to the guys before the game that Coach Payne had prepared them, he's prepared this program and made it what it is. I said that it had nothing to do with anyone but them. I told them that they were prepared to play regardless. I am happy for the kids. They played really, really hard. Everyone who came in contributed."

Payne missed just the second game on the sidelines at Upstate in his eight-year career in Spartanburg. Prior to Thursday's game at North Florida, Payne had missed the Jan. 28, 2004 game against Francis Marion in Spartanburg due to complications from a ruptured disc in his back which had to be corrected with surgery later in the year. The Spartans dropped that game with assistant coach Jeff Smith guiding the team.

The situation was much different Thursday night in Jacksonville as Upstate used a stifling defense and cold shooting by North Florida to gain control of the game early and never relinquished its hold, taking the 14-point win.

Upstate held North Florida without a field goal for the first 7:02 of the game. The solid defense by the Spartans and the cold shooting from North Florida allowed Upstate to build an early 10-1 lead.

Andy Diaz sank a jumper with 12:57 to play in the half to cut the Upstate lead to seven and the Ospreys got within five at the 12:00 mark. However, Upstate used a 5-0 spurt to increase its advantage to 12.

North Florida battled back to get within six with 7:20 to play before halftime, but Upstate closed out the half by outscoring the Ospreys 15-5 to open a 34-18 lead at the intermission. The 16-point lead was the biggest lead the Spartans have owned at halftime this season.

Each time North Florida attempted to get back into the game in the second half, Upstate countered to maintain control. The Spartans saw their lead dip to 13 points on two occasions early in the second half, but took the lead back to 16 each time.

North Florida rallied to cut the lead to single digits on Stan Januska's three-pointer with 9:36 to play in the game, but Nick Schneiders answered with an emphatic dunk to push the lead back to double digits. After the Ospreys again cut the lead to nine, Chalmers Rogers answered with a jumper with 8:21 to play and the Spartans would not allow the lead to reach single digits the rest of the way.

Schneiders was solid throughout the game and led Upstate with his second double-double of the season. He finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds to go along with three blocked shots. He altered several other Osprey shots as North Florida's post players could not figure out the big guy down low.

"Nick really played well," said Perry. "At one point the other assistants wanted to take him out and give him a break, but I told them I didn't want to take him out because he was so valuable in what we were doing out there defensively."

Rogers was simply solid off the bench for Upstate. He finished with a career-high eight points in 11 minutes. Pat Posey reached double figures with 11 points. Ryan LeGates tallied nine points and Josh Chavis added eight. The Spartans shot 52 percent in the first half and finished the game shooting 47 percent from the field to get the win.

Stan Januska and Eni Cuka led the North Florida attack and were the only consistent scoring options for the Ospreys. Januska finished with 18 points and four rebounds, while Cuka added 11 points. UNF shot just 29 percent from the field in the first half and finished the game at 32 percent.