UNCG Picks up First Win

UNCG 76 - USC-Upstate 70

News & Record
Spartanburg Herald-Journal
UNCG Athletics
USC Upstate Athletics

In a battle of Spartans, it was the UNCG Spartans that held off a late charge from the USC-Upstate Spartans to collect their first win of the young season. It's always good to go ahead and get that first win, and it's even nicer that it's a road win. Now it's time for the Spartans to come home and win in front of their own fans.

Positives:
- Turnovers --- After having back-to-back games with 23 give aways, UNCG only turned the ball over 15 times in Spartanburg. The Spartan had 16 assists & 15 turnovers to post their first positive assist-to-turnover ratio this season. Kyle Randall, Korey VanDussen and Montel Smith did a great job of handling the ball against a team that bought pressure at times. Smith really stepped up and steadied things at a point when UNCG needed his senior leadership.
- Scoring --- It is nice to see several UNCG players have big scoring nights. Through 3 games, UNCG had struggled to get more than one player into double figures. Last night, there were plenty of scoring options for the Spartans. Brandon Evans had 19 points. Ben Stywall poured in 17. Mikko Koivisto scored 13. Randall had 9 and even Brian Cole chipped in 8 points in just 12 minutes on the court.
- First Half Shooting --- UNCG had the 6th best shooting half in school history last night (3rd best first half). The Spartans shot 65.4& (17-26) from the field and 71.4% (5-7) form behind the arc.

Negatives:
Free throws --- UNCG only shot 56.7% (17-30) from the free throw line. This allowed USC-Upstate to stay in a game that it felt like the Spartans should be winning by a lot more. Brandon Evans scored 19 points and barely hit 50% (8-15) from the line. With the way he drives the ball to the basket, he needs to hit more of those b/c he will end up on the line quite a bit. Hopefully, it was just a one game aberration for Evans and for the entire UNCG squad.

That's the only real negative that jumped out at me last night while listening to the game. Now that the Spartans have that first win under their belt, it's time to give us all something to cheer about at home. The East Carolina Pirates will be at the coliseum 2 days after Thanksgiving. Hopefully, there will be a nice crowd there that will have a reason to celebrate.

Go Spartans !!!