In college basketball, you never know what program will become the next great mid-major. One team that’s worth watching closely is the South Carolina Upstate Spartans. With USC Upstate being a small program without much history, it’s usually easy to find cheap South Carolina Upstate basketball tickets. But that doesn’t mean the Spartans can’t have high hopes and big aspirations. The program experienced great success in the NAIA and at the Division II level before jumping to Division I in 2007. Since then, the demand for last-minute South Carolina Upstate basketball tickets has continued to rise, making the Spartans a team to watch closely.

Show Me a Trophy

During the 1980s, the Spartans competed at the NAIA level. However, they were a successful program at that level. USC Upstate won the NAIA national title in 1982, winning all five tournament games by at least 10 points, including a convincing 51-38 win over Biola in the title game. A decade later, the Spartans were a force at the Division II level. Between 1991 and 2006, USC Upstate reached the Division II NCAA Tournament six times, reaching the regional finals four times. That success helped the Spartans to make the leap to the Division I level in 2007.

This is Sparta!

Longtime head coach Eddie Payne oversaw USC Upstate’s move from Division II to Division I. As expected, it took a few years of losing for the Spartans to gain traction. But their breakout season came during the 2011-12 campaign when they finished tied for second in the Atlantic Sun and reached the second round of the CIT. Postseason has become a regular occurrence for the Spartans, who also took a step forward in 2018 when they joined the Big South Conference. The Spartans now play in a conference that’s filled with regional rivals and competitive games, helping South Carolina Upstate get ever closer to breaking through as a mid-major program that the rest of the college basketball world knows.