Less than two minutes into ETSU’s men’s basketball game with USC Upstate Monday night, senior forward Greg Hamlin hit a layup to put the Buccaneers up 2-0.
However, from that point the 3,854 in attendance would wait until the 18:30 mark of the second half before the Bucs would regain the lead.
ETSU survived a hard-fought first half to emerge victorious over the Spartans 82-72 at Memorial Center, as the Buccaneers improved to 15-5 overall and 9-1 in Atlantic Sun Conference play.
“Teams in our league are not easy to beat,” ETSU head coach Murry Bartow said. “We knew it’d be a tough game, but in the second half we kind of got rolling.”
The win marked the Bucs’ fourth straight victory in a four-game homestand and the second straight win over the Spartans (4-15, 3-7). Also, ETSU again tied Jacksonville for first place in the Atlantic Sun Conference standings.
The Buccaneers were able to shake off a slow start and set the pace in the second half. Effective use of the full-court press defense forced 17 Upstate turnovers, and efficient free-throw shooting (31-of-35) helped the Bucs get the win. For ETSU, senior guard Courtney Pigram and junior guard Mike Smith tied for the game-high score with 22 each, senior forward Kevin Tiggs added 18 and Hamlin posted his second career double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds.
“We feel very comfortable with (Hamlin) in the game,” Bartow said. “Even if he doesn’t score for you, he’s going to make good passes and play a very good post game.”
For the Spartans, senior forward Bobby Davis led the team with 18 points. Junior center Nick Schneiders added 16 points and eight rebounds, and sophomore guard Josh Chavis scored 15.
While playing a solid first half, the Spartans’ second-half fouling woes may have led to their undoing. They were outscored 50-36 in the second half, a 24-point margin, while 25 of ETSU’s second-half points were scored from the free-throw line.
At the outset of the contest, the Spartans used Schneiders’ size to force the Bucs to focus on defending the inside. The 7-foot-3 junior scored eight points and grabbed five rebounds in the first half and his presence under the basket was enough to pull ETSU defenders away from outside shooters.
“We were trying to figure out how to stop (Schneiders) in the first half,” Pigram said. “We couldn’t trap him because he could see over the defenders.”
The efficient play-calling gave Upstate an advantage in the first half. As a team, the Spartans shot 52 percent from the floor and 40 percent from 3-point range.
The Buccaneers, on the other hand, struggled to find their rhythm offensively. As a team, ETSU shot 10-of-20 from inside 3-point range but 2-of-11 from beyond the arc, limiting their shooting to 39 percent from the field.
Despite their shooting woes, the Bucs kept the deficit low as they went into halftime trailing 36-32.
“We knew we had to play better in the second half,” Smith said. “We wanted to come out and pick things up – and get the crowd involved.”
As it turned out, it didn’t take long for ETSU to do either. Within 59 seconds, the Bucs cut the deficit to one point, then retook the lead in dramatic fashion as Tiggs slammed down a Pigram alley-oop to make the score 39-38. Over the next 7:38, the Bucs went on a 13-2 run to establish a 52-40 lead. For the rest of the game, Upstate would cut the score to single digits three times, but foul trouble and ETSU’s fast-paced full-court defense stymied most of their efforts.
“They got us sped up early in the second half,” USC Upstate head coach Eddie Payne told UpstateSpartans.com. “We did some decent things, but we let them control the tempo, which was the difference in the game.”
“This was a good homestand for us,” Bartow said. “It was good to win these four at home. Now we venture back out on the road.”
The first stop for ETSU will be a pivotal match-up against Jacksonville (11-8, 9-1) to determine the top spot in the Atlantic Sun. The game will be broadcast on CSS Friday at 7 p.m.

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