Spartans Eliminated From Big South Tournament

Survive and advance. It is as simple as that when it comes to college basketball in March.

The 2026 season for the USC Upstate Spartans men’s team would be on the line Wednesday night as they traveled to Johnson City, Tennessee for the first round of the Big South Conference Tournament and a “rubber match” with the Gardner-Webb University Runnin’ Bulldogs.

The Spartans and Bulldogs split their regular season contests – the most recent of which was the senior day finale this past Saturday in which the Spartans dominated wire to wire for a 71-61 victory. Karmani Gregory tallied a team-high 22 points while Mason Bendinger scored 15 and Carmelo Adkins notched 13 to secure no worse than the 8-seed in the conference tournament this week. Upstate had a chance at the #7 seed, but were unable to get help from UNC Asheville, who would have needed to beat Charleston Southern in addition to the Spartan victory over GWU, setting up the showdown on Wednesday.

The first time these 2 teams met, it was a sloppy yet closely contested battle in which Upstate had an early lead, but failed to finish the first half strong. In the 2nd stanza, Gardner-Webb made a lot of clutch baskets while the Spartans struggled to play turnover/mistake-free basketball down the home stretch. Eventually, after giving the Bulldogs the lead in the final seconds, a dribble off the foot turned the ball over and allowed Gardner-Webb to get their first win over a D1 opponent.

Wednesday’s rematch in the tournament was nearly a mirror image of that first meeting. USC Upstate took an early 6-3 lead, but thanks to going 2 for their first 5 from the free throw line, Gardner-Webb was able to hang in, eventually taking the lead on a Jacob Hudson layup at the 14:17 mark. Upstate answered on the other end with a layup from Garcia, devolving the game into a back and forth.

That changed in the stretch between the under 12 and under 8 breaks when GWU went cold for over 2 and a quarter minutes. The Spartans took advantage of that by going 6 for 8 from the field and putting together a 12-1 run to open up a 22-13 lead. Gardner-Webb would tip the scale back in their favor with a 9-0 run ahead of the final media timeout of the half that cut the Upstate advantage to just 3. The USC skid would extend to 4 minutes before Learic Davis took a bounce pass from Gregory and drained a triple from the left side of the top of the arch at the 2:34 mark, but GWU responded with a 5-0 spurt to make for a narrow 30-29 Upstate lead heading to the half.

In the early going of the 2nd period, both sides traded baskets to the tune of 5 lead changes over the first 8 minutes. Gardner-Webb used a stretch of three Upstate turnovers in a minute and a half ahead of the under 12 break in addition to going 6 for 6 at the line to build their largest lead at 9 points before Coen Collier stopped the bleeding with a layup at the 11:29 mark.

Ahead of the under 8, the game took a crazy swing back in Upstate’s direction with a strange sequence of events. Breylin Garcia split a pair of FTs and Isaiah Skinner tipped in the miss off the 2nd shot, getting fouled in the process. He converted the and-1 for a 4 point swing that would later extend to 7 when Skinner gave the Spartans the lead with a corner trey with 6:57 to play.

The game once again devolved into a back and forth heading into the home stretch – a spot where Gregory has thrived and made some clutch shots all year long. In Wednesday’s tilt, he had just 7 points on 2 for 8 from the deck late in the 2nd stanza. But, with 1:34 to play, he took a pass with a wide open look from the left side of the top of the arch and put up a rainbow triple to get himself in double figures, giving the Spartans the lead 64-62.

That advantage would not hold as Gardner-Webb went to the line 4 times in the last 20 ticks. Jamias Ferere drew a foul and sank both of his free throws with 14 seconds to play, giving the Bulldogs a 1 point lead. Upstate would get a chance at the last shot for the win, but Ferere snuck in and stole the ball off the dribble, sealing a 65-64 win for GWU and ending USC Upstate’s season.

“Tonight was a March college basketball game”, said Upstate head coach Marty Richter after the loss. “In March Madness, it always comes down to one or two possessions. We gave up too many offensive rebounds – 9 in the 2nd half on top of 9 turnovers. That is 18 extra possessions they got compared to our 7 from their turnovers and our offensive rebounds. You cannot do that in a game and expect to win. My hat goes off to Gardner-Webb. They played zone and did a good job. They got us out of rhythm all night and when we finally got in one, we could not get over the hump. It came down to the fact we didn’t meet and greet a pass. If we do that and get fouled, you have a chance to be up three instead of down one and then it boils down to execution on offense. But, we didn’t meet and greet the pass.”

The 1-point loss marked the 19th defeat of the season for USC Upstate, who finished with a 13-19 overall record that more than doubled their 6 victories in Richter’s first season a year ago. The improvement is obvious, but Upstate has a long way to go to get to the point of being one of the top teams in the Big South Conference – a league that is always going to be competitive.

“Every game in our league comes down to the last couple of possessions”, said Richter. “This was our 12th league loss. Of those, we had 2 games that were not close – Winthrop the first time and High Point the 2nd time. Every game comes down to the last 8 minutes. We all have ‘like players’. The coaches in this league all do a very good job. It is a very well-coached league.”

Nonetheless, the foundation has been laid and the culture has been established by the likes of Upstate’s two seniors that saw their careers end on Wednesday night – Breylin Garcia and Isaiah Skinner. It is that foundation that Marty Richter hopes to build on to achieve his ultimate goal while he is head coach at Upstate.

“These two guys {Garcia and Skinner} always have a chip on their shoulder”, Richter stated with an emotional tone. “They have shown it from day one. BG is the most energetic young man I have ever been around. Isaiah had 18 points, 4 rebounds, and three assists tonight. He has a high basketball IQ. Replacing them is going to be tough. But, they set the standard of getting us to the next spot. They won’t get rewarded in the here and now for that since their careers are done. They are going to see Upstate change and they started that transformation for us. At the end of the day, I want to play in the NCAA tournament at Upstate. They have never been there at the D1 level. That is my goal and I know we can get there.”

With the season under wraps, the burning question fans might have is this – what is the key takeaway for where the program stands after year two under Marty Richter? He had an answer that perfectly puts a bow on the careers of the seniors as well as the goals for the future of the program – which looks especially bright with the growth shown as well as the confidence Richter has.

“This program is defined by how BG {Garcia} is everyday”, said Richter with a chuckle. “How is BG? Energetic and loud. He has set the tone for us and Isaiah has set the tone for how hard we have to work. Both have done an unbelievable job. They have set the standard. They have set the bar. Now the question is whether or not the next group can go by that standard, surpass them, and set the bar. That is now my job. I have to get the next group of kids to come in and develop. I want these guys to come back and work out with these guys. That is the beauty of having guys like them that have been here a long time. That is when you start truly developing a program and culture.”