USC Upstate basketball is in the midst of a new era. Coach Marty Richter took over a roster that was absolutely gutted. The Spartans were, understandably, picked last in the Big South Conference preseason polls. They returned just Andrew McConnell and CJ Rich from last year’s roster – neither of whom played many meaningful minutes. The most experienced player on the roster, senior Guard Kanye Jones, has been injured. So, in short, expectations could not have been much lower for Upstate coming into this season. And justifiably so.
Fast forward just over 2 weeks – 5 games into the season, and the Spartans have proven the same thing to be true in a significantly more surprising and pleasant way – this is NOT last year’s team.
Upstate opened the season on the road at NC State – a team that is coming off a final 4 run last year. The Spartans fell in that game, as one might expect, but they showed some promise – or as some might say, “flashes”. And they have been showing that those flashes are a lot more than fool’s gold glinting in the pan ever since.
Following their opener, USC Upstate returned home to the Hodge Center to take on Division III Piedmont University, overcoming a slow start to cross the century mark with a 103-70 win. Then they went up to Blacksburg, falling to Virginia Tech 93-74. Probably their most impressive showing came against one of the perennial ACC contenders back on November 13th, when they went toe-to-toe with Wake Forest in Winston-Salem. USCU took a late lead in that game but were unable to hold on, falling 85-80. That was all thanks to Mister Dean. Yes, that is his name, and it is a name you should go ahead and circle/notate.
The newcomer guard has won Big South Freshman of the Week honors in each of the first 2 weeks of the season, and deservedly so. He scored in double figures in each of the first 5 games – the most since Justin Bailey achieved the same mark back in February of 2023, and the first by a freshman since Jordan Gainey’s streak of 12 consecutive back in 2021. If that wasn’t impressive enough, Dean also scored 20 or more points in three of the first five contests.
Mister is just a small cog in what is looking like it could be more like a well-oiled machine if they play to their potential. This new-look Upstate roster has demonstrated that they have speed up and down the roster. That speed has helped them to establish Marty Richter’s desired identity for this program under his leadership – speed, aggressiveness, and good defense, and so far, the only thing that has been left in doubt over the first 5 games of the season is the defense.
They’d have a chance to work on that with a home game on Tuesday night against a Division II opponent in Southern Wesleyan University, but despite the mismatch, the Warriors proved to be a worthy foe. These 2 squads have played once before, with SWU winning 82-72 back on November 25, 2020 – and it was evident that they were aiming for a repeat of that in the Hodge Center on Tuesday.
Upstate came out a bit unfocused and sloppy. Karmani Gregory secured the opening tip, and almost immediately was stripped, giving way to a SWU layup on the other end to take a 2-0 lead. Over the course of the first 4 minutes of the game, the Spartans turned the ball over four times, which helped the Warriors get on a 6-0 run heading into the under 16 media timeout, where they led 11-9.
As the minutes played on, Southern Wesleyan maintained no bigger of a margin than 6 points and no smaller than 3, with USC Upstate staying within striking distance despite some poor shooting and continued struggles with turnovers. For perspective, at the under 8, where SWU was up to their biggest lead at 27-21, the Spartans were shooting just 8 of 18 from the floor, 2 for 7 from three point range, and 3-7 at the free throw line with 6 turnovers.
“The biggest message I preach to this team is discipline”, said Richter of his team’s early struggles. “ If we have discipline on the court, off the court, and in the classroom, we’ll have a chance to be really successful this year as a team. Discipline is really simple. But, in the first half, we tried to run through three passing lanes, and we didn’t come up with a steal on either one of them. SWU scored off those mistakes. That’s just being undisciplined.”
Things finally began to swing in Upstate’s favor approaching the final media stoppage of the half, when they went on a 5-0 spurt capped by a game-tying triple from the right wing by Karmani Gregory to make it 31 all. The Spartans built on that, after Mister Dean hit a trey of his own from the left side to take the lead with 3:15 to play. Eventually, they upped the advantage to 43-39 at the half, which ended on a long three from Brit Harris.
The Spartans gave themselves all the cushion they would need out of the intermission, as they extended Harris’ half-ending three into a 10-1 run spanning 3:32, running away from there thanks to a second-half explosion from Mister Dean and a nearly 6 minute scoreless skid by the Warriors. Dean scored 17 points in the frame, giving him a team-high 21 points, just missing out on a double-double with 9 rebounds and 2 steals.
“He sparks runs because he’ll make a dynamic dunk or he’ll make a dynamic rebound. He’ll do something on the offensive end. And that’s what’s beautiful about him, Mister brings energy with how he scores the basketball in a hurry. He can score in bunches as he did tonight. He scores quickly and does a really good job of doing that within the system”, said Richter.
Four other Spartans notched double figures in the 95-63 victory. Karmani Gregory had 15 points with a rebound and 3 assists. Brit Harris, Chico Johnson, and Carmelo Adkins each tallied 12 points with Harris adding a team-high 6 assists to that total, which pleases Marty Richter, who also wants as many guys as possible to score.
“We want everybody to score because everybody plays harder when they score. And if you keep sharing the ball, we’ll keep scoring. And I think we had points where we really shared the ball and we had a couple of guys that weren’t. When I say they were selfish, they had open looks and didn’t take them and they passed them up to the next guy, which is a really good play, but they should have shot it. They have come a long way with that because if you watch our game against NC State, whoever got the ball was shooting a first-touch shot and they have now made progress in that in the last two and a half weeks.”
As far as the 2nd half effort, Richter was quick to credit the adjustment, but laments that Upstate’s defense still needs work.
“With around eight minutes to go, they {SWU} were 5 of 22. So I know we started guarding. That’s how we got even. You’ve got to train your players how to defend. If you don’t guard, you can’t win. Our guys don’t understand that yet because they’re young and don’t understand college basketball real well. But if you don’t guard, you can’t win. And this would have turned into a nail-biter if we didn’t start guarding in the second half. I was really proud of them for how they flipped the switch at halftime to come out in the second half. Tonight showed me that they can struggle and not do what they were supposed to at the start of the game and then flip it. A lot of teams can’t do that. I’ve been a part of a lot of programs where guys can’t flip it.”
“But, it doesn’t matter”, Richter later added. “When we go on the road on Friday night, if we defend, it doesn’t matter who you’re guarding, if we defend like we did in the second half, we’re going to have an opportunity to win.”
Upstate, who is now 2-4 on the young season, will take a trip up to the site of the 2024 Big South Conference Tournament – Freedom Hall in Johnson City, TN this weekend to take part in a multi-team event. The Spartans will take on the hosting East Tennessee State Buccaneers Friday night with a 7:00PM tipoff and will close out the trip with Queens University (Charlotte) Saturday with tip set for 6:00PM.
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