Mercer Women’s Basketball Opens Final Homestand with USC Upstate

MACON, Ga. (MERCER RELEASE) – Returning home and looking to get back on track with the end of the regular season in sight, the Mercer women’s basketball team welcomes USC Upstate to town Thursday evening for an Atlantic Sun Conference matchup inside Hawkins Arena.

Gameday Lineup

Date: Thu. Feb. 20 | 7 p.m. EST
Teams: Mercer (12-12, 5-8 A-Sun) vs. USC Upstate (12-11, 7-5 A-Sun)
Location: Macon, Ga. | Hawkins Arena (3,200)
Video: A-Sun.TV
Talent: TBA
Live Stats: MercerBears.com
Twitter: @MercerWBB

Story Lines

Mercer leads the all-time series with USC Upstate 8-6, but the Bears dropped a heartbreaker to the Spartans earlier this year on the road, falling 63-62. Upstate used an 8-0 run over the final 1:55 to emerge with the victory and put an end to three-straight wins by Mercer in the series. The Spartans last defeated the Bears inside Hawkins Arena on Jan. 5, 2011.

With 599 career assists, senior Sharnea Boykin is on the brink of becoming just the sixth player in conference history to record 600 assists. Boykin has dished out 10+ assists in a game 11 times in her career to lead all active A-Sun players and she is just 10 assists shy of breaking into league’s top five all-time

Teanna Robinson has jumped into the top spot of the active A-Sun players in career blocks with 152. She enters the week ranked 12th in the A-Sun record books in career blocks and is averaging 3.9 blocks per game this season for the No. 2 spot in the country, only trailing BYU’s Jennifer Hamson.

Last Time Out

The Mercer women’s basketball team received a game-high 18 points from Precious Bridges Saturday afternoon, but Stetson used a 13-0 second-half run to pull away for a 62-49 victory at The Edmunds Center in Atlantic Sun Conference action.

Scouting USC Upstate

USC Upstate comes into Macon having won six of their last eight games, with one of those being a 63-62 victory against Mercer in Spartanburg. In that game, senior forward Valese McCallister knocked down the eventual game-winning layup with 0:16 left on the clock and sophomore center Brittany Starling scored 14 points and added seven rebounds in the contest.

Upstate currently sits at third in the A-Sun, due to the reclassification of Northern Kentucky, and will be looking to strengthen its hold on a first round home game in the A-Sun Championship.

The Spartans have struggled on the road this season with a -13.0 scoring margin, which has led to the 6-7 record away from home. Upstate is also being outrebounded on the road by nearly nine boards per game.