Why, with the other party located only a few minutes down the road, do we never see a crosstown matchup against USC-Upstate?
Less than ten minutes apart, the two Spartanburg neighbors have met once – in 2010, in Charleston, in a neutral site tournament game. Wofford emerged victorious, 79-61, and the two schools have not crossed paths since.
In fact, prior to that 2010 matchup, the two teams had not played since 1988, before either team had moved to NCAA Division I. The women’s basketball programs from both schools appear to have never met, at least according to the records available on the website for Wofford athletics.
For context, Wofford competes regularly against Upstate’s peers in the Big South Conference, namely UNC-Asheville, Gardner-Webb and Presbyterian, among others – would it not make sense to throw in the school so close by you can drive there and back during your lunch break?
Brent Williamson, Wofford’s associate athletic director for athletic communications, explained the intricacies of the scheduling process, which, with the exception of football, is handled by the head coaches.
“Scheduling is an interesting subject…” Williamson said. “Once you factor in the conference schedule for each sport, that leaves the non-conference schedule that the coaches create – keeping in mind that each sport has a specific limit of how many games you can play – 56 for baseball, 27-31 for basketball depending on if a tournament is included, volleyball is not more than 32 contests in 28 dates of competition, etc.”
Williamson added that men’s basketball scheduled 31 games this season. After scheduling 18 conference games, 13 open slots became 11 after the Terriers agreed to host Hampton and Georgia Southern as part of the Terrier Classic.
After the coaches fill a couple of slots for home games with non-division I teams, such as Bob Jones and Erskine this year, in lieu of exhibition games, the remaining games are left to be satisfied with home-and-home contracts. The five contests scheduled this year were Kennesaw State, Richmond, Gardner-Webb, Coastal Carolina and Presbyterian.
The football and basketball programs are also requested by the school to play “guarantee” games such as scheduled contests against Clemson, Duquesne, South Carolina and Georgia for the purpose of generating revenue.
While this lends context to the scheduling process, it does not exactly offer an explanation as to why Wofford and Upstate do not compete in men’s and women’s basketball.
Basketball in this case serves as the exception, rather than the norm. Wofford leads the men’s soccer series history 10-2, as the two schools competed every season from 2008 to 2019, though the games the last two seasons were canceled for COVID-related issues.
The Terriers’ women’s soccer program leads the series 8-2, most recently defeating the Spartans 1-0 back in Sept. 2021.
The series history between the baseball programs has been a bit more competitive, with the Terriers holding a slim 13-10 lead. The Terriers and Spartans will face off on the diamond this season on Mar. 22 at Upstate’s Cleveland S. Harvey baseball park.
Wofford women’s volleyball leads the series 7-4, women’s tennis leads their series 8-3, having won the last seven in a row, dating back to 2014. Upstate leads the men’s tennis series 5-4, however, and cross country competed at the Upstate Invitational this most recent season.
Ryan Frye, associate athletic director of athletic communications at USC-Upstate, was unable to provide any insight on the matter of why the two schools do not meet on the hardwood.
“Scheduling is one of the more difficult jobs that coaches have to handle,” Wofford Athletic Director Richard Johnson said. “Our coaches work diligently to create schedules that are best for their teams in a given year.”
Coaches Jay McAuley for the men’s basketball team and Jimmy Garrity for the women’s program both declined to comment, instead deferring to AD Johnson.
“There are numerous ways to build out a schedule so that your non-conference games help you prepare for the challenging Southern Conference slate each year, which hopefully then leads to success in the SoCon tournament,” Johnson wrote me in an email. “The Southern Conference is working very hard to improve the quality of play in both men’s and women’s basketball with a variety of enhancements. Each team must also meet certain metrics as part of this enhancement process, which includes strength of schedule. While some years it might make sense to play USC-Upstate, currently it doesn’t fit for a myriad of reasons.”
It is worth noting what one online poster commented: during last year’s COVID-impaired season, when teams were scrambling to minimize travel and make up for canceled games left and right, why didn’t Wofford and Upstate set a date?
Less than ten minutes apart, if ever they were to have played, even if only for a last-second make-up game, last year would have been the time.
“Another example is that baseball used to play Clemson and South Carolina every year, but they have not been on the schedule for the past five years – purely a coaches decision,” Williamson said. “So long story short, if a coach wants to play USC-Upstate and it fits the non-conference schedule they are trying to build, they do.”
Wofford certainly hasn’t been hurt by an absence of competition against our next-door neighbor, and the coaches are by no means under any obligation to make a crosstown contest happen.
That said, I would submit that neither school has much to lose by initiating an annual rivalry, alternating home courts. Sure, Wofford has outpaced Upstate’s hoops success as of late – while the Terriers have collected five SoCon tournament titles since 2010, the Spartans have yet to make the NCAA tournament, ever.
Still, there is everything to be gained in a crosstown rivalry with the potential to pique the interest of players, students and the local Spartanburg community, as well as minimize travel efforts and expenses.
These two neighbors haven’t played anytime recently, but here’s to hoping they start sometime soon.
