Bulls roll into AAC tourney semifinal
The elements indigenous to March Madness never manifested themselves at Dickies Arena early Friday afternoon. Nothing suspenseful nor surreal, crazy nor quirky.
Instead, top-seeded USF provided its fans a textbook game instead of a tense one. As a result, they’re in the American Athletic Conference tournament semifinals for the first time in the event’s 11-year history.
Brandishing all the attributes — crisp ball movement, dead-eye proficiency, ruthless defense — that led them to the greatest regular season in program history, the Bulls (24-6) coasted to an 81-59 quarterfinal victory against No. 8 East Carolina before a sparse audience in Fort Worth, Texas.
“To have 18 assists, 9 turnovers, I’ll take it all day,” Bulls coach Amir Abdur-Rahim said. “To have less than 10 turnovers in a game, you’re going to give yourselves an opportunity to win.”
The Bulls will face UAB (21-11 after a 72-60 victory over Wichita State) today at 3 p.m. in a semifinal that could determine their postseason trajectory. ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi forecasts USF as a No. 12 seed in the NCAA tournament, but that’s contingent upon the Bulls winning the conference tourney. Whether a conference-tourney title puts them in the field as an at-large qualifier remains the subject of fierce debate.
Far less debatable was the fact Friday’s romp — five days after its 15-game win streak was snapped with a six-point loss at Tulsa — may have represented USF’s most complete effort of the year.
“I would say so,” said sophomore Kobe Knox, who hit five of six 3-pointers en route to a 17-point effort. “Just putting together a full 40 minutes of offense and defense, trusting each other. … The 18 assists just shows the confidence that we have in each other. So yeah, I would say so.”
Four Bulls scored in double figures, with Knox and senior Selton Miguel from West Oaks Academy scoring 17 each, and 6-foot-10 junior Kasean Pryor adding a double-double (10 points, 10 rebounds). USF shot better than 50% from the floor for the game (30 of 58) and 45.2% from 3-point range (14 of 31), and at halftime was shooting 53.3% from both the floor and 3-point line.
Perhaps most significantly, no player tallied more than 29 minutes, enabling Abdur-Rahim to preserve his players’ collective tank for a potential stretch of three tournament games in as many days.
“When you can go to your bench and bring guys in, and it doesn’t matter who it is … it just gives you confidence as a coach to know, especially in a tournament setting, you’re going to be able to keep fresh legs,” he said. “And you’re going to be able to keep the same focus, energy and effort that you need to win a game.”
On Friday, that focus, energy and effort may have hit a crescendo. As a result, the Bulls stand at the brink of the program’s fourth NCAA berth.
“After that Tulsa loss … we talked about having a purpose to everything we do,” Abdur-Rahim said.
“Because if we have a purpose, it’s going to drive our energy, it’s going to drive our effort, it’s going to drive our attitude. So I thought these guys played with great purpose [Friday].”