USF slamdunks defending NCAA basketball champion Virginia 6160.
Victory over 2019 NCAA champions is USF’s 1st over top5 team since ’81
Quick historical perspective on USF’s 6160 upset victory over No. 4 Virginia on Friday: None of the Dons’ players — nor head coach Todd Golden — had been born the last time USF beat a topfive team.
The Dons’ last win over a topfive team came Dec. 29, 1981, an 8474 decision over No. 2 Wichita State in the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu.
From beating the Shockers to shocking the Cavaliers took nearly 39 years. Golden, 35, discussed the significance of Friday’s win in the “Bubbleville” event in Uncasville, Conn.
“Virginia is a program that we aspire to be like,” Golden said in his postgame Zoom news conference. “I have incredible respect for Coach
(Tony) Bennett and his program. For us to be able to compete like this on a national stage, on national TV, against one of the winningest programs in the country, this is a big, big step for our program.”
The Cavaliers, who won the most recent national championship in 2019, bolted to an 113 lead in the first 61⁄2 minutes, but USF responded.
Guard Jamaree Bouyea sparked the Dons (21) as he had game highs of 19 points, six assists and two steals. His layup — off a nice feed from Taavi Jurkatamm — with a little more than three minutes remaining gave USF a 5554 lead. The Dons were ahead to stay.
Golden said Bouyea “had the best game of his career,” noting the senior from Seaside played 35 minutes and did not commit a turnover. “Just a phenomenal effort. I thought he was the best player on the floor.”
That layup sparked an 80 run that put USF up 6154 with less than two minutes to go. Bouyea described how he exhorted his teammates down the stretch: “I said, ‘How bad do we want to win? This is the No. 4 team in the country, a nationalchampionship team. This is the biggest game maybe of our season. How bad do we want to win?’
“I guess we wanted to win really bad. We pulled off the ‘W.’ ”
Virginia (11) had closed its deficit to a point with 10 seconds left. The Dons’ Josh Kunen then missed the front end of a 1and1. The Cavaliers had a chance to win it, but Sam Hauser’s 3point try was off the mark and the Dons got to celebrate a victory made even more remarkable considering it was their third game in three days.
And USF’s season didn’t begin exactly promisingly. The Dons fell 7668 to UMass Lowell on Wednesday.
“It was just a wakeup call for us,” Bouyea said of the loss.
Said Jurkatamm: “It was a bad feeling. I personally couldn’t sleep after that game.”
The Dons assuredly won’t lose any sleep over Friday’s game. USF has a glorious distant past (the Bill RussellK.C. Jones teams won NCAA titles in 1955 and ’56), but not much recent glory (only one NCAA Tournament appearance in nearly 40 years).
Golden mentioned the Dons’ final game of last season, an 8177 loss to thenNo. 2 Gonzaga in the WCC tournament, as an example of USF getting close to beating a renowned program but falling a bit short until Friday.
“This is the first time in the five years that I’ve been at USF, as an assistant and as the head coach, where we’ve been able to push through in a game like this and finish it,” Golden said.
“I think it will continue to build the belief of the players’ confidence and the belief in the program, that if we can execute what we want to do that we can play with anybody in the country.”
Briefly: Bennett paid tribute to the Dons. “They played hard. They were scrappy. You could see that,” the Virginia head coach said. … USF went 13for28 from 3point range and held the Cavaliers to 3for12 from long distance. … The Dons also got doublefigure scoring from Khalil Shabazz (14 points) and Dzmitry Ryuny (10) . ... USF is off Saturday and finishes its stint in “Bubbleville” by facing Rhode Island on Sunday.