https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... orida/men/

After a surprise, resurgent season under first year coach, Amir Abdur-Rahim (Shareef’s younger brother), South Florida was in position to build upon a 25-8 (16-2) season and AAC regular season championship. They were very entertaining to watch, putting together the nation’s third longest winning streak of 15 games, but fell short of tournament aspirations in the end. A retooled roster over the summer, in the rapidly declining AAC, still had them projected at contender status (with UAB, Memphis). However, on October 24th tragedy struck the squad with the shocking and unexpected death of their coach…….. and what they’re dealing with has got to be unimaginably difficult and challenging.

Since last season’s surprise, USF lost its top 3 scorers, but reloaded with 3 newcomers leading them in PPG and overall statistics. Jayden Reed (12ppg), Kasen Jennings (10ppg) and Jamille Reynolds (11ppg). Lone starting holdover from last year, Kobe Knox, also contributes 11ppg. Beyond its top 4 scorers, USF possesses some depth too, with #6 thru 9 in lineup each solidly contributing.

At present, USF is averaging 77ppg (not bad) while allowing nearly 77ppg (very bad). They are also an unsatisfactory shooting team themselves - unknown whether bad shot selection or just brick layers. This does not translate to many wins.

As USF plays a 6-9 guy and a 6-10 guy, this should be the Miles and DeLoach game. The matchup of bigs looks appetizing. Miles is due for a 20-10 game….. one of these days.

Load up on coffee….. Maybe a bloody or three……. Let’s enjoy Breakfast with the Blers (If signed up), and then happily get to 8-0.

Odds: Pending

LU -9.5 according to ESPN

Wow feel lucky to escape with that win

An excellent, gritty win, and it’s exciting to be 8-0 with a chance to show we are legit on a national stage next weekend vs. San Fransisco.

On a semi-related note - hats off to our social media and video departments. Just saw the video on X of the entire team fist bumping Sister Jean and a nice moment between her and Drew. We’ve been fortunate enough over the past 8 years to have a relatively drama-free program, which is a credit to our coaches and players. This week’s viral “Look what these jerks did to Sister Jean” incident was wild, but we all at least understood that it wasn’t as disrespectful as it looked. Still - it was a semi-story this week and I thought our social media people did an unbelievably good job in the way they handled it with their responsive videos. Even though it wasn’t warranted - that video made our players look bad on a national level, and it was nice to see our social media team stepping up as part of the program and the culture and make us look good after something that made our guys look bad. Job well done

Crowd was a little sleepy with the early start but gentile woke up by the end for sure. Fun game. Houinsou has really impressed me. Rebounded well, shot well, defended well. Any word on how bad Dawson’s ankle injury is?

At the game today. MUCH better attendance. Let’s give the students free sweaters every game!
Also, while our unbeaten streak continues, we had better be ready for these teams gunning for us from tip-off as USF did today. They almost pulled this one out.

Downsides
I thought Reid with 23 pts was going to do us in.
USF guarded us well from 3 as we only made 28%
They had the better Reb Game 34 to our 30
USF better fastbreak points 11-8
We only had the lead for 4+ minutes.
And as an overall thing, several of our players can use the breakfast club

Upsides
Love those bench pts @33 and Pts in paint 34. We are staying strong in these stats.
13 fouls a touch high but 7 TOs is very manageable
Points off Turnover battle we won 17-5
DeLoach with 3 steals
Des 14 pts including that huge 3 with 31 seconds left.
Houinsou strong today, 12 pts, 5-7 FG and 7 ReB, 5 Assists, 2 for 2 at the line.
JQ 12pts with a fighting spirit to the rim for a much needed bucket in the second half and a winning FT
Miles had only one foul today, and of course his customary 2 blocks
Nwaokorie 7 Reb and 5pts
Sheldon chipped in with 3-7 from 3


The Joe was back to where it needs to be in attendance and the crowd got loud at the right times.
What can you say except that 8-0 sounds REALLLL good.

Ramblers v San Fran next Sunday in Milwaukee should be a good game to watch! Will there be many maroon and gold scarves in attendance?

Two sequences in the game stood out, massively -

9-0 run in first half to give us 21-20 lead. 3 dunks and a three all in less than a minute. That was entertaining and brought the place to life.

Then in second half, JQ single-handedly went on an 8-0 run (3x for STRONG layups and 2ft’s), again bringing us back to life and a 54-50 lead. JQ of 2 years ago would not have done this, remember. Player of the game, IMO.

Thought Rubin and DeLoach would’ve had better numbers, scoring wise. #2 was a big boy and beefy. He was a handful.

Houinsou elite defender. Great game.

Moore. Still hesitant to take a three, but good distributor.

Sheldon a very quiet good game.

Des is back.

A little too much 1on1 throughout second half but whatever gets buckets.

Milwaukee at the Forum will be fun.

entertaining game,
1. Thought South Florida was well coached. Did a lot of things well.
2. As mentioned they guarded the 3 pretty darn good...few really clean looks...and the one Des hit at the end was really well defended. Seemed that there Defensive plan was not to double except in the post..and gave us a lot of chances to go one on one , right into the mammoth hulk,#2 (275 and a freshman) who had 12 rebounds
3. Speaking of the Hulk I thought Miles(#2) did a great job of locating and boxing him out on the our defensive boards...but we had a lot of guys that banged off him like he was a character in a Marvel movie. However when we got him 1 on 1 up top on switches we were able to take him to the hoop...Interesting chess match all game.
4. Also interesting look at how two teams and coaches develop different types of rosters. USF small jitterbug guards and big heavy post players, and we seem to want to have athletic, lengthy. interchangeable players.
5. When Miles Rubin get fired up and engaged in a game he is really something.
6. we missed so many shots and they rebounded well that we often times were not able to set up our D and got caught in mismatches...With Dawson out for awhile I presume I worry about our 3 point shooting.
7. Overall a determination to be relentless even though it seemed that USF answered every volley we threw at them, we would make a run then they would stretch it back to 5, We just kept coming until they didnt have an answer and we executed down the stretch...This was just an enjoyable game a boxing match in which we got the last punch
8. My sister in Law sitting in the front row had to wear ear plugs it got so loud. I sit in the last row so hard to tell how effective the noise is.....any comment from fans down low?
9. Jalen Quin was Tuscola Tough tonight. He always seems to get to the rim anytime he wants....and he has really improved at finishing..He used his right hand a couple times tonight including a floater....hard to say if he should have gotten more calls on some of those drives. They sure let the kids play tonight.
10. Does anyone know what the technical on USF was about?
11. Post game from USF coach called the atmosphere "sensational" and the Ramblers a "quality opponent".
12. We won the turnover battle in the 2nd half 9-1.
13. Over the last few years we always seem to struggle against small, quick guards.
Again what a great game.

I had to leave the game at half time to attend a family event, I heard on the Ramblers radio that Reid got called for jawing a bit too aggressively with the bench for the refs and got the T

I had to leave the game at half time to attend a family event, I heard on the Ramblers radio that Reid got called for jawing a bit too aggressively with the bench for the refs and got the T

Edit: Jawing and he gave Blers bench the finger lol

NSFW:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/MhquFMdnXte5CxDz8