There is no sugar coating it. It has not been a good season for Brian Gregory’s USF men’s basketball team. The Bulls came into Wednesday night with an 8-18 record and had only won a single game in American Conference play. Gregory’s team though has shown signs of life recently. Even with the bad record, they have been competitive and have been giving conference foes fit. The Bulls came up just short in close losses to UConn and rival UCF in the conference slate. On Wednesday night the Bulls completed the season series with their in-state rivals, UCF. The Knights came in the clear favorites, but David Collins and the Bulls put up a fight all night long. UCF got out to a double digit lead multiple times, but every time the Bulls would go on a run to keep themselves in the game. In the end, USF couldn’t overcome A.J. Davis’ career night. The Bulls had to abandon their gameplan late in the contest and it allowed UCF to secure the 72-57 victory in a game that was much closer than the score indicated.
Early in the 1st half it looked like the Knights might continue the Bulls’ conference woes. The teams were tied at 2 early on, but then UCF took over. The Knights led by double digits twice, but USF kept chipping away. UCF’s biggest lead was 11 at 25-14, but then the Bulls took off. USF went on a 10-0 run to cut the lead all the way to just a single point. They couldn’t sustain that momentum,though and missed their next 5 shots. UCF got the lead back up to 6 and entered the locker room with a 33-27 advantage. B.J. Taylor and A.J. Davis led the way for UCF in the 1st half with 10 points each. The sole reason why the Bulls were in the game was freshman, David Collins. The guard led all scorers with 13 points in the opening 20 minutes.
The opening minutes of the 2nd half were fairly evenly matched. UCF got their lead up to as big as 9 point and USF cut the lead to as little as 3. Once the halfway mark of the period was crossed, UCF started to show their muscle. The secret to the Knights’ success was the 3-point shot. That shot got their lead up to the biggest it had been all night at 62-48. Davis and Taylor both continued to be the catalysts for the foes from Orlando. Davis came into the game shooting only 22 percent from 3 point land, but made his 1st 3 attempts on Wednesday night. Gregory employed an interesting strategy late in the game by fouling some of UCF’s worst free throw shooters in a hack-a-Shaq type of move. That decision wouldn’t pay off for USF as the Knights made enough shots to prevent any type of comeback.
The Bulls will have a few days off before going back on the road again. USF will be in Oklahoma on Sunday afternoon to face the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes. Tip-off for that contest is scheduled for 3 pm.