UNC Asheville Hosts USC Upstate on Sunday at 2 p.m.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. - The UNC Asheville Bulldogs come home in search of their third straight win when they host USC Upstate Sunday afternoon starting at 2 p.m. Sunday's game will be televised regionally on WMYA-TV (Channel 40). The game will also be broadcast on 880-AM with the pre-game show starting at 1:30 p.m. Audio-streaming will be provided at www.uncabulldogs.com.

Asheville (4-4) opened defense of its Big South Conference championship with a hard-fought 66-60 win at Gardner-Webb Thursday night. The Bulldogs fell behind 14-1 and trailed by four in the second half before rallying for the victory. After only scoring 21 points in the first half, Asheville tallied 45 points in the second half.

"We grinded it out Thursday night and picked up big conference win on the road," stated Asheville coach Eddie Biedenbach. "Anytime you get behind 14-1 and come back and win you have to be pleased. I thought our defense was tremendous most of the way and that kept us in the game."

The Bulldogs step out of the conference on Sunday to take on an improving USC Upstate team that is 6-2 on the young season. The Spartans had a young club last season that finished 5-25 but one of those victories was a 93-91 double-overtime victory over Asheville at the Hodge Center. Last year's contest was a wild and wacky affair that had each team hitting last-second three-pointers to send the game into an overtime period.

"We haven't forgotten the game at USC Upstate last season," commented Biedenbach. "It was their first win of the season, and they were a little hungrier than us throughout the game. You could tell that they had some great young talent and that's really showing this season. Eddie Payne (USCS's head coach) is a very good coach, and he has that program moving in the right direction. We're going to have to play extremely well to have a shot at winning. We can't fall behind like we did last year and on Thursday and expect to win."

A win by the Bulldogs would give Biedenbach his 250^th career victory. He has 220 of those at UNC Asheville.

After Sunday's game, the Bulldogs will take time off for exams and won't play again until Dec. 15 when they host Montreat at Kimmel Arena

NOTES

UNC Asheville is 2-1 at Kimmel Arena this season.

Senior guard J.P. Primm earned his 500^th career assist last Saturday night against Utah. Primm now has 505 in his career and needs just 16 to pass K.J. Garland (520) to become the school's all-time leader. In addition, J.P. has 199 career steals. When he gets his 200^th steal, he'll become just the fifth player in Big South history to have more than 500 assists and 200 steals.

Senior guard Matt Dickey is the Big South Preseason Player of the Year coming into this season. Dickey is Asheville's leading scorer with a 16. 1 average and he's scored in double figures in all eight games this season. He's shooting .500 (38-of-76) from the field and .800 (36-of-45) from the charity stripe. Matt is second on the team in assist (26) and steals (13).

This will be the first time USC Upstate coach Eddie Payne has coached at UNC Asheville since the 1984-85 season when he was the head coach at Belmont Abbey. The Bulldogs head coach that night was Jerry Green.

Jeremy Atkinson is averaging 7.3 rebounds in the last four games, including nine against both UCONN and College of Charleston. He is Asheville's top rebounder at 6.3 per game.

J.P. Primm is shooting .871 (27-of-31) from the free throw line.