Box Score AIKEN, S.C. – Re'mon Nelson became the all-time leader in school history in steals and the University of South Carolina Aiken men's basketball team picked up its 20th straight regular-season home victory in a 77-67 win over Paine on Wednesday evening at the Convocation Center.
The win over Paine (2-3) came in the first meeting between the two CSRA rivals since Dec. 16, 1997.
USC Aiken (6-2, 2-0 PBC) has now won four straight contests.
Nelson (Columbus, Ohio/Canal Winchester HS) ended his evening with a career-best seven steals in claiming the school record for total steals. Nelson now has 165 steals in his Pacer career. He passed former record holder Kingsley Oguchi (2005-09), who ended his Pacer career with 162 steals.
The seven steals on the night for Nelson came as part of a game that saw Nelson finish with 13 points, eight assists and five rebounds in addition to the seven steals.
Nelson was one of five Pacers in double figures in the contest with Paul Larsen leading the way for USC Aiken with 16 points and 14 rebounds. Larsen claimed seven of his caroms on the evening on the offensive glass.
Larsen (Mooresville, N.C./Mercer) was 5-for-7 from the field and 6-for-7 from the free throw line en route to his double-double.
The national leader in 3-pointers made per game, Ronald Zimmerman (Columbia, S.C./Spring Valley HS) concluded his evening with 15 points, three assists and three steals. He made two treys in the contest.
Jesse Seilern (Innsbruck, Austria/Kapfenberg HS) closed out the Pacer win with 10 points.
The final Pacer in double figures was Santoine Butler, who ended his evening with 13 points and four rebounds.
Butler (Augusta, Ga./Gardner-Webb) most importantly led a Pacer block party that saw USC Aiken end its evening with a school-record and Peach Belt Conference record-tying 14 blocks as a team. Butler accounted for nine of the 14 blocks.
The Pacers last blocked 14 shots as a team in a home win over North Georgia on Jan. 17, 2011.
USC Aiken as a team ended its win over Paine shooting 33.3 percent (21-for-63). Paine shot 38.7 percent (24-for-62) as a team in its loss to the Pacers.
The Pacers were 29-for-33 (87.9 percent) from the free throw line in the game. Paine hit upon 73.7 percent (14-for-19) of its free throw attempts in the contest.
Three Lions scored in double figures with Mario Jordan and Darius Smith tying Larsen for game-high honors with 16 points each.
USC Aiken basically led from start-to-finish in the win over the Lions, who held the lead just once at 2-0 with 19:42 remaining in the first half.
The Pacers would go ahead by as many as 16 in the first half before taking a four-point 41-37 lead into intermission.
USC Aiken outscored Paine, 36-30, in the second and final stanza.
After a short holiday hiatus, the Pacers will next welcome King to the Convocation Center at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 30.
