SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Despite a late push by the Spartans, the FGCU women's basketball team earned a 56-44 win Monday night at USC Upstate. With their 16th-straight win, the Eagles move to 23-4 on the season with an 11-0 Atlantic Sun Conference record. FGCU also secures the no. 1 position in the postseason and clinches at least a share of its sixth-straight A-Sun Regular Season Championship. The Spartans fall to 17-9 and 8-3 in A-Sun play with their first loss since Jan. 23.
 
Whitney Knight (Winston-Salem, N.C./R.J. Reynolds High School) scored the team's first seven points and helped FGCU take a double-figure lead at the end of the first quarter. The Eagles limited the home team to a 20.6 percent shooting clip in the first half and increased the lead to 25-points before the break. The Spartans increased their offensive intensity in the second half and cut the deficit with an 11-2 run in the fourth quarter but the Eagles maintained the advantage and walked away with a 12-point win over the league's second-place team.
 
"USC Upstate has been playing really good basketball. I'm just happy that we got off to a great start," said head coach Karl Smesko. "They've played really good, aggressive defense so we wanted to make sure we had good ball movement and got the ball to our shooters. Taylor Gradinjan had a great first half and we were able to hold on with the lead we had early in the game."
 
Taylor Gradinjan (Cudahy, Wisc./Cudahy High School) led the Eagles with 18 points, all scored from beyond-the-arc on a career-high six 3-pointers, while Knight added 13 points and pulled down 10 rebounds for her second double-double in three games. Stephanie Haas (Avon Lake, Ohio/Magnificat High School) contributed nine points for the Green and Blue with five made free throws on five attempts.
 
As a unit, the Eagles shot 35.1 percent on the night with 10 3-pointers and held the Spartans to a 26.5 percent success rate with just two made 3-pointers on 12 attempts. The Eagles held a minimal advantage on the boards at 45-44 with 10 second-chance points FGCU turned the ball over 15 times against USC Upstate and forced just nine turnovers, the fewest of any FGCU opponent this season.
 
Knight scored the team's first seven points as FGCU took a slight lead right away before the Spartans responded to tie the game at seven with 6:30 left in the quarter. From there, the Eagles held the home team scoreless through the remainder of the stanza, while extending their own point total with 10-straight points. The run included back-to-back 3-pointers from Gradinjan and layups by Kaneisha Atwater (Fort Pierce, Fla./Fort Pierce-Westwood High School/VCU) and Katie Meador (Salem, Ill./Salem Community High School). With the impressive defensive performance that held Upstate to 17.6 percent in the quarter, the Eagles finished the first with a 17-7 lead.
 
Upstate cut its dry spell with a layup 30 seconds into the second quarter but the Eagles extended the lead back to double figures with back-to-back 3-pointers from Dunson and Gradinjan. The consecutive long range shots pushed the score to 23-9 in favor of the Eagles. FGCU maintained the 11-point advantage for just a few possessions as the Spartans cut the run with a layup midway through the half. Knight sparked the Eagles again with a 3-pointer from the left side before consecutive layups from Meador pushed the score to 30-11 with three minutes to play. The Spartans added two points from the free throw line but Gradinjan knocked down shots from beyond-the-arc on consecutive possessions to extend the lead again. Haas followed with two shots from the free throw line to give FGCU a 25-point lead in the final minute of the half.  The Spartans added four points in the remaining time but the Eagles went into the break with a 21-point advantage.
 
The Eagles shot 45.2 percent in the first half with eight made shots from 3-point range and held the Spartans to just 20.6 percent overall.
 
The Spartans entered the second half with an increased intensity and cut the deficit to just 15 points in the first five minutes. Gradinjan sparked the Eagles once again with her sixth long-range shot of the night and helped the Green and Blue produce a 7-2 run to end the quarter, pushing the lead back to 52-31.
 
USC Upstate started the fourth quarter with a 9-0 run and cut the deficit to 12 points midway through the final stanza. The Eagles were held scoreless for the first five minutes and added just four points in the last five minutes but held off the Upstate surge and maintained the advantage through the final minutes.
 
With the win, the Eagles secure at least a share of the A-Sun Championship for a sixth-straight year and for the seventh time in eight seasons. The team maintains a three-game lead on USC Upstate and Jacksonville with three games remaining. The Eagles hold the tiebreaker over both teams, with a season sweep over both and will hold home-court advantage through the A-Sun Championship.
 
The Eagles will return to Alico Arena for a 4 p.m. contest against Kennesaw State Saturday, Feb. 20 and will host Lipscomb on Monday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. Saturday will serve as senior day for the team's large senior class. The group will be honored prior to tipoff against the Owls.
 
Game Notes: FGCU won its 15th-straight game of the season and is undefeated in A-Sun action since Feb. 1, 2014…the 40-game win streak in conference play stands as the nation's second-best streak behind only UConn…FGCU is 11-0 in away contests this season and is one of four teams with a perfect win percentage on the road…the Eagles are one of nine teams nationwide undefeated in conference play, joining Connecticut, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Colorado State, New Mexico State, Arkansas State, Penn and UC Riverside……with three blocks at USC Upstate, Whitney Knight maintains the second position all-time in the Atlantic Sun Conference record books at 288 career blocks and is just two away from the record…DyTiesha Dunson ranks second all-time in the FGCU record books with 385 career assists…Jaime Gluesing played in her 128th career game Saturday afternoon and is just four games shy of the FGCU games played record (complete records available here).
 
TICKET SALES
Single-game tickets for all FGCU women's basketball games are on sale.  Fans can purchase tickets online at FGCUAthletics.com, over the phone at 239-590-7145 or in person at the Alico Arena Box Office.
 
SMESKO
Head coach Karl Smesko earned his fifth-consecutive Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year award after a successful 2014-15 campaign. Under his direction, the team compiled a Division I program best record of 31-3, including a 14-0 mark in conference action and earned its first-ever national ranking. The team earned its third NCAA Tournament appearance as a seven seed and won its first ever DI NCAA Tournament game against No. 10 Oklahoma State. With 31 wins in the 2014-15 season, Smesko has guided the Eagles to 11-straight 20+ win seasons.  He maintains a record of 368-71 at FGCU for a win percentage of 83.5 with a mark of 142-13 (91 W%) in Atlantic Sun contests and has led the team to a 79-1 record in conference play in the last five seasons.  The six-time Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year earned his 400th career win last season in just 493 career games, two games faster than UConn's Geno Auriemma, and holds a career record of 429-98 (81.1 W%).  Smesko ranks among an elite list of just four active Division I coaches with a career win percentage of .800 or higher, joining Auriemma, Baylor's Kim Mulkey and Stanford's Tara VanDerveer in the esteemed group.
 
SUPPORT THE CAUSE
FGCU Athletics sponsors events throughout the year to benefit the FGCU Campus Food Pantry (www.fgcu.edu/foodpantry) and the Harry Chapin Food Bank (www.harrychapinfoodbank.org), FGCU Athletics' charities of choice. For more information, including how to make a contribution, please visit www.fgcu.edu/foodpantry and utilize the hashtag FeedFGCU to help raise awareness.