Mercer University
USC Upstate
Men's Basketball Outlasts USC Upstate, 73-66
1/9/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Mercer senior Justin Cecil scored a career-high 26 points to lead the men's basketball team to a 73-66 win over USC Upstate in the G.B. Hodge Center on Monday night. Mercer took its fourth win in its last five games and moved to 12-7 (4-2 A-Sun) while Upstate dropped to 9-8 (3-2 A-Sun).
"I'm so happy for those guys," Mercer head coach Bob Hoffman said. "We had a lot of different players step up for us tonight. It was huge how we played defense and made play after play."
Cecil scored his 26 points in just 29 minutes of work on Monday, finishing the evening five-of-eight from three point range. The Lakeland, Fla. native also booked four rebounds, a block, an assist and a steal in the winning effort.
Mercer led by as many as seven early in the game, but Upstate scored six unanswered midway through the first half to take its first lead of the night at 21-20 with 5:53 to play before intermission. After Mercer freshman T.J. Hallice hit a free throw to tie matters at 21, the teams matched scores for rest of the way and went into halftime knotted at 31-31.
After the break, the Mercer defense clamped down and held Upstate to just five points in the opening 8:51 of the second half. Over that stretch, the Bears exploded for 22 points, 13 of which scored by Cecil.
"At halftime we told the guys we needed to be more solid defensively," Hoffman said. "Paul Larsen was a big reason we got off to that great start and Cecil played the defensive game of his life."
Upstate continued to fight and whittled the 17-point deficit to three (65-62) with 1:16 to play. In the final minute, the Bears hit eight-of-eight free throws to secure the victory.
Redshirt sophomore Jakob Gollon netted 10 points on four-of-eight shooting while sophomores Daniel Coursey and Larsen each added eight points of their own.
All told, nine Mercer players cracked into the scoring column on Monday night.
Mercer returns to action at the University Center on Friday, January 13 against in-state rival Kennesaw State. Game time is scheduled for 7:06 p.m.
