SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Playing in front of a raucous home crowd at the G.B. Hodge Center in its first regular season home game under head coach Marty Richter, USC Upstate men's basketball delivered its leader his first victory helming the program, defeating Piedmont 103-70 Wednesday evening.
 
The Spartans for the ninth time in the program's Division I era (2007-pres.) hit the century mark on the scoreboard with its 103-point output against the Lions. Wednesday's game marked the first time in nearly a calendar year that Upstate scored 100-plus points, last doing so versus Carolina University on Nov. 12, 2023—also the last game to see Upstate score 50-plus points in both halves.
 
Six players finished the night scoring in double-figures for the Spartans while all 11 players who appeared for Upstate scored. Upstate also finished the evening shooting 61.5 percent (40-of-65) from the field, the first time shooting greater than 60.0 percent since Dec. 30, 2023, versus Coker.
 
Freshman guard Mister Dean paced the Spartans with a career-best 25 points, finishing the night shooting 12-of-12 from the field while complementing his scoring with eight rebounds, two blocks, and a steal. Scoring 16 points behind a 5-of-7 shooting performance, going 4-of-5 from three, redshirt freshman guard Chico Johnson finished behind Dean on the scoring list. Freshman forward Nic Book again ended a rebound shy of a double-double with 14 points and nine boards while junior guard Brit Harris dished out nine assists.
 
Game Information
Score: USC Upstate 103; Piedmont 70
Records: USC Upstate (1-1; 0-0 Big South); Piedmont (0-0; 0-0 CCS)
Location: G.B. Hodge Center | Spartanburg, S.C.
 
How It Happened
First Half

• Breaking the seal on the baskets, Piedmont notched the first bucket with a driving layup before Mister Dean answered on the other end for Upstate. The Lions jumped out to a four-point advantage before a six-point Spartan run erased it. Piedmont responded with seven straight points to jump out to its largest lead (+5) with 14:42 to play in the half.
• Sparked by a five-player line change, Upstate battled back to the tune of a 21-point scoring run, regaining the lead and not looking back. The Spartans proved ultra-efficient in the scoring run, hitting eight of 11 field goal attempts and knocking down three of six attempts from beyond the arc while holding Piedmont to 0-of-9 from the field. Carmelo Adkins, draining three triples, led the scoring stretch with nine points with Dean following with eight points.
• Seeing the long scoring run snapped by a made free throw with 9:09 remaining before halftime, Upstate grew its advantage by outscoring Piedmont 33-3 over an eight-minute span of the first half. The Spartans held the Lions to just one field goal in the stretch with the lead expanding to 25-points in Upstate's favor.
• Chipping into the Spartans' advantage as the first half dwindled, Piedmont closed the period by outscoring Upstate 15 to nine, trimming the lead to 19 at the break. Andrew McConnell led the Spartans down the stretch—the final five minutes—with six points, hitting a pair of treys.

 
Second Half

• Piedmont, much like the first half, opened the second half with the first points, hitting once from the charity stripe. Upstate responded with the half's next four points before pushing its run to 9-3 over the first three minutes of the new stanza. The Lions answered with a run of its own—it's longest of the night—with nine straight markers, cutting the lead to 16 with 14:53 to play, the closest the game got during the second half.
• Growing the lead back to 20-plus points, Upstate snapped the 9-0 scoring run of the Lions with a 10-3 scoring margin heading towards the under-12 media stoppage. Chico Johnson led the stretch with eight points, knocking down two threes and adding two more from the charity stripe.
• Spanning the under-12 media timeout, the Spartans held Piedmont without a field goal make for almost four minutes as their lead continued to grow. On the other side, Upstate was 5-of-6 from the field in the stretch. Heading towards the century mark, Upstate made one additional lengthy scoring run, a 10-0 stretch that helped the Spartans eclipse the 90-point threshold.

 
Notable

• Upstate's 103-70 victory Wednesday evening marked the first win at the head of the Upstate program for head coach Marty Richter.
• The Spartans finished the night shooting 40-of-65 from the field, good for a field goal percentage of 61.5 percent—the team's highest since shooting 61.7 percent against Coker on Dec. 30, 2023. Upstate's 40 field goals made are the most since making 41 versus Truett-McConnell on Nov. 8, 2019.
• Scoring 25 points, Mister Dean led Upstate in scoring for the second straight outing, following up his 14-point debut at NC State Monday. He's the first true freshman to lead the Spartans in scoring in each of his first two career games since Justin Bailey in 2022-23 while he's also the first true freshman to score 20-plus points since Jordan Gainey in 2021-22.
• Breaking the 100-point barrier, Wednesday's game marked the first in nearly a calendar year (Nov. 12, 2023 versus Carolina University) to see Upstate score 100 or more points. The game marked the ninth in the Division I era (2007-pres.) with the Spartans scoring 100-plus.
• Hitting 13 threes Wednesday against Piedmont, Upstate improved its streak of consecutive games with at least one made three-pointer to 904 games, a streak dating back to the 1994-95 season. The stretch also includes each of the Spartans' 535 games at the D1 level.

 
Up Next for the Spartans
Closing out its week, USC Upstate heads to the Commonwealth of Virginia for its second matchup of the week against an ACC foe. The Spartans head to Virginia Tech for a 7 p.m. ET tilt Friday evening.
 
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