abochner

How could you not be delighted with this season? That was a tough physical game against UAB. We fought hard. Not making excuses but they had a good game plan and we were missing two key players in the post. The technical fouls against us really hurt. That was a 7 point swing and demoralizing. Refs could have called two technicals on UAB, but they didn't.

ESPN: "USF now a lock to make the NCAA Tournament even if they falter in conference play (tournament)."

Not to worry. This was a classic "sandwich" game as well as a big let down game emotionally. Players aren't machines. Have to love they way thy finished. With under four minutes left, they had their work cut out for them.

RPI seems irrelevant now. We will likely be in the 80s tomorrow.

We had them all the way. Some very questionable refereeing. Don't often see a 5 point play. But give credit to FAU, they are a character team. Fought hard. Not sure why we didn't see more of Youngblood in the 2nd half. Love our coaching. No panic at the end. Only weak ness on this team is in the paint. Hard to stop teams that drive the lane.

Massey has us at 96, 5th in AAC.

Wish we had another day of practice before taking on Cincy. But they played yesterday too. SMU is a better matchup for us. The key to next year will be whether Yetna comes back 100 per cent and can shoot with confidence, and Caleb Murphy. Gregory doesn't ordinarily like to play freshman, but Murphy is an exceptional athlete. I wouldn't count much on Luke Anderson until he gets on the court. Zach's high school play was even better than Anderso's and he has been slow to round into shape and gain his shooting confidence. I think, he will be much better next year. I have serious doubts about Mack. He is not Gregory's type of inside player. He seems lost when he gets on the court and is consistently out of position on defense. A shame neither of this year's recruits got any significant playing time. We are better than Temple...not so sure about UConn. They've had some impressive wins.

Durr wears down and that has been a problem, but his last 5 or so games he has shown great improvement. He really shined late in the season last year as well. Paired with Yetna next year, thewy will both be juniors and should be as good as any frontcourt in the AAC. Speaking of guard recruit Caleb Murphy, he is currently rated the 6th top player in Georgia. Check out the tape of his game in the quarterfinals of the 7A State championship on youtube under, Caleb Murphy beats old school in state playoffs. He is a quick slashing guard.

Two really tough losses in OT last year to Temple. Revenge is sweet. USF was definitely the more determined team down the stretch. Water finds its level. USF 0-6 against top 5 teams in the conference; 6-4 against the rest. Would love to end the season with a win against Cincinnati or SMU. Both are possible but not likely. With Yetna we could have been top 4 or 5. I admire Coach Gregory. He stayed tough through having to face a lot of adversity. Rebounding has been strong all season with the exception of two games against Houston, one of the best rebounding teams in the country. Free throw shooting vastly improved the past eight games and the offense is more diversified with the improved post play of Durr. Not easy to win on the road at Memphis and Temple. If we can make it to the start of the 2020-2021 seaason without serious injuries, this can be a 20 win team next year (assuming Yetna returns to form and the new 4* guard is the real deal. I love Q's hustle and defense, but he has some serious limitations on the offensive end. Zach should be a lot better next year as well. Let's get out to the games this week and support the team.

Down 6 points with under 4 minutes left, the Bulls came back to beat an improving East Carolina team. They held Gardner, the top scorer and rebounder in the league to 3 rebounds with a terrific game plan that forced him to play hard defense. Coach Gregory has put together some great game plans, but he simply doesn't have all the pieces to execute them. USF does not have a power forward and frequently must play Collins and Williams against taller, stronger, legitimate power forwards. Brown is big enough, but it detracts from his offensive game and other than Zach we have no other shooters that can be relied on to hit 3s. Even so, USF has managed to outrebound at least three quarters of the teams they have played. Coach's move to bench Brown three weeks ago has proved smart as he has played much better the last two weeks. Still, most other teams in the league play 9 or 10 guys. USF relies on 7 or 8. Collins played 43 minutes last night and but for foul trouble Q would have logged about the same. This is the reason they often fade at the end of games. Also, other teams know our limitations. We've seen more and more zone defense against us, because we don't have outside shooters other than the streaky Brown. But Gregory can coach. I have no doubt about that even though the results this year have been disappointing. The foul shooting has improved and several players, most notably Durr, Q, and Brown have shown a lot of improvement the last month, though the wins have not come. If I have one criticism of Gregory it is that he the two freshman recruits have been totally neglected. They haven't gotten any of the much needed experience. I've been to all the conference games and the whole league seems tougher this year. If you want to see what Yetna meant to USF, just look at the play of Jayden Gardner last night. He was runner-up to yetna as best new player last year. After Gardner fouled out, USF dominated. Yes, one player can mean that much to a team when he is that good. Tke a deep breath and remember that in 2017, we were 0-19 in the conference and 16 of the losses were by double digits. When that season ended we lost all of the still eligible players. Gregory started literally with nothing--from scratch. Who wants to come to such a program. He must have been a hell of a salesman to get Collins and Brown, two players who would start or be first off the bench on most of the teams in the league.

No, we do not need a massive talent upgrade in men's basketball. We are bring in a 4* guard; Zach is also a 4* guard who is just getting his game back after not playing for nearly two years, and Yetna was a recruiting steal. Is Houston and Memphis more talented? Yes, but we beat Memphis and should have beaten them twice. We started LITERALLY from scratch two years ago and, to his credit, Coach Gregory has laid a great foundation. Go listen to Houston coach's presser last night. He pointed out what a devastating loss Yetna was to this program. Rome wasn't built in a day as they say. We lose only Q and our back-up center next year and replace him with a top 50 recruit, and Yetna returns. And Collins will be our only senior next year. The top three teams in the conference are more talented--I won't argue with that. But the only team that has outclassed us has been Wichita State. I discount SMU because we just weren't ready to play. Still, it is hard to recruit top 100 players to USF BB and it is going to take some time until we become a regular 20+ win team. I believe in Gregory. One really good sign is that nobody is leaving the program. In three years, he has lost only one player who was in the regular rotation.

I am not discouraged by the performance of the men's basketball team. Gregory came into an impossible situation and has brought class, pride, and hard work to the program. He started literally from scratch, then he had the misfortune of losing his best player the weekend before the opening of the season. No doubt at all in my mind that we would have been a 20 win team this year with Yetna. The future looks bright. Support the team.

Houston is a really tough matchup for usf because of their dominant "length" and rebounding. Game should be competitive as our guys know what is at stake. I think USF can beat Tulsa, SMU, E. Carolina, and Temple (beat us by one point and in overtime last year). Connecticut appears much improved since we beat them and currently has a 71 NET rating, which means that should count as a Quad 1 qin as well. Not sure why it doesn't.

Penny Hardaway called the loss to USF "a total embarrassment." Blamed the loss on foul trouble and injuries. Funny how we never hear Coach Gregory blaming injuries. We won without Durr; didn't have Zach on Saturday and Q was in foul trouble a good bit of the game. They shot 59% from the foul line; we shot 70 per cent. Those four foul shots were the difference in the game. Never said anything about our defense down the stretch. Collins converted 2 for 2 in one-on-one match-ups; they were 0 for 2. Not impressed with Hardaway's coaching. They started two 5 star recruits. We started a bunch of guys. We should have beaten them twice. This loss very well may have knocked them out of the NCAA Tournament. Would be nice to take a couple other teams out. Houston may just be too good but Cincinnati and Tulsa are beatable.

Coach Gregory is a winner. Lots of adversity this year, having to reshape the team strategy a few days before the start of the season due to the loss of Yetna, then later injuries to several other players. He is an inspirational, no BS,coach, never making excuses and the guys appear to love to play for him. The conference is much better this year from top to bottom. The one point loss to UCF--we were robbed--and failure to finish against Florida State, Utah State, and Eastern Carolina likely cost us an NIT bid. The measure of coaching, however, is improvement over the course of the season and this team has improved markedly.