South Florida Pregame/Prediction Thread

[jkwuc89]

This is a battle for a top 4 position in the league and a double-bye in the Big East tournament. UC cannot have a let down after the big win over Louisville. USF is good this year and this will be a tough place for the Bearcats to get a win.

[Kindog202]

Originally Posted by jkwuc89

This is a battle for a top 4 position in the league and a double-bye in the Big East tournament. UC cannot have a let down after the big win over Louisville. USF is good this year and this will be a tough place for the Bearcats to get a win.

Plus it's a dreaded noon tip game. I actually think we match up pretty well against USF, they are big and prefer to play in the half court. It sucks that Park is down, don't know how long but good to see him on the bench in the second half, but if we can get pressure and create turnovers, we can run them out I believe. They have a freshman point guard in Anthony Collins who is playing well, hopefully our pressure will be able to rattle him.

[Who Dey Time]

USF plays at a fairly slow tempo but Collins is really a nice player. However, if UC can get to 65 they win. They will. Oh and screw Loserville still!!!!!!

UC 66
USF 58

[Deaf_Bearcat]

Again... my prediction is...

USF 62
UC 60

My prediction will change from time to time. Please bear with me. :-)

[waterhead]

Keys to winning (after watching Cuse game)...

Rebound (box out)

Keep the PG in front of us and guard his running floater

Find someone to disrupt the tall dude on his three pointers (Jackson will probably see a lot of minutes)


I will be there!

[swilsonsp4]

Anthony Collins is a really quick PG, who gets into the lane to create havoc. However, he's a wretched shooter from outside. I can't recall which opponent it was, but they refused to guard him beyond the arc. They just denied him access. It worked. Keep his butt out of the lane & he'll just dribble around.

The Bulls are very patient, with good size. Jawanza Poland, who comes off the bench is athletic and long at the small forward position. Gilchrest and Fitzpatrick are bigs who can move and score.

They are also boring to watch. Count on 30+ seconds per possession. It's effective, though.

This will be tough. I'll think about it and predict later.

[BasketBySteveLogan]

Mick has yet to win in Tampa. Streaks like that are made to be broken, right?

[red_n_black_attack]

The hottest three point shooting team in the BEast hits open and guarded shots early, opening the lane for our bigs. Gates has a field day inside as we make (and more importantly only take) the right amount of outside shots to free up inside.

UC in a route....with a styfling defense!

'Cats - 84 (Gates scores 34)
Bulls - 53

[Carin's Dad]

According to Mick, Parker probably will play. 75-63 us

[Panamacat]

Originally Posted by Carin's Dad

According to Mick, Parker probably will play. 75-63 us

I thought there were going to be NO updates (Micks words) for strategy reasons. I'm curious where you heard or read this.

[BigDaddyCornHusker]

Originally Posted by Panamacat

I thought there were going to be NO updates (Micks words) for strategy reasons. I'm curious where you heard or read this.

Koch is also saying Parker will play.

UC 66
SF 60

[swilsonsp4]

The Bulls are a very balanced team offensively. There’s no one dynamic scorer, but seven players score from 6.7 to 10.3 ppg, led by Augustus Gilchrest. The number two scorer, Jawanza Poland, is a long wing who missed eleven games. He averages 9.0 ppg.

The strength of their team is their defense, which is enabled by excellent length. They are pretty athletic and hold their opponents to 39.6% shooting (30.3% from outside). The Bulls out-rebound their foes by a 3.5 margin.

One of the problems they have is taking care of the ball. They average 12.1 assists/game, but 13.7 turnovers/game, which is a lot, considering their controlled style.

The key to making the Bulls struggle is containing PG Anthony Collins. Keep him out of the lane. It’s probably even more important to deny him access to driving lanes than it was to do likewise to Peyton Siva. Collins almost never tries a trey. Over the season (23 games played), he has launched a shot from outside the arc only 13 times, hitting four (30.8%). One team I saw (can’t recall which) effectively dropped off Collins and dared him to shoot. Instead of firing it up, he just dribbled around. That fits into their style anyway, as Stan Heath has them running as much clock as possible, trying to shorten the game.

I don’t see anyone on the radio team of Dan Hoard, Chuck Machock and Mo Egger taking a point in the Struggle for the Steak if they predict a high score. USF will try to put this game in the freezer. They’ll run out, if you turn it over, but not otherwise.

That said, UC squeaks out another road victory, 55-51.

[CanadianBearcat]

I've seen USF play a few game this year and they are a tough team to score on. Fortunately they had no offense to speak of, especially without Collins on the floor. We wont score much but they will have trouble cracking 50...

61-48 for the Red and Black

[juckerrules]

SF has played 28 games - in 13 of them, they have scored < 60 pts.
They turn the ball over more often than UC, have fewer rebounds, fewer steals, and fewer blocks. They'll be fortunate to break 50 against UC, although I'll give them a few points for the home court.

They shoot the ball slightly better percentage-wise overall, but UC shoots the 3 better.

They score more than 9 pts. LESS than UC

They are a better free throw shooting team

Against top 25 teams, they are 0-5 (although they beat Seton Hall back when they were rated #24 for a minute) - that is their marquee win for the year (unless you count Cleveland State)

They lost to Kansas by 28, Marquette by 20, Georgetown by 30, ND by 11 as well as 7 other teams. They have fattened up on the bottom tier of the BE - to their credit, they haven't lost to St. John's or Rutgers

Opponents they have defeated in the BE, minus the losses to SF, have a combined record of 39-86 (if I counted correctly)

There is no reason (other than the noon start) that the Cats do not handle this team no matter where they play.

UC 65, Bull ****ers 54

[BearcatAlum1]

Originally Posted by juckerrules

SF has played 28 games - in 13 of them, they have scored < 60 pts.
They turn the ball over more often than UC, have fewer rebounds, fewer steals, and fewer blocks. They'll be fortunate to break 50 against UC, although I'll give them a few points for the home court.

They shoot the ball slightly better percentage-wise overall, but UC shoots the 3 better.

They score more than 9 pts. LESS than UC

They are a better free throw shooting team

Against top 25 teams, they are 0-5 (although they beat Seton Hall back when they were rated #24 for a minute) - that is their marquee win for the year (unless you count Cleveland State)

They lost to Kansas by 28, Marquette by 20, Georgetown by 30, ND by 11 as well as 7 other teams. They have fattened up on the bottom tier of the BE - to their credit, they haven't lost to St. John's or Rutgers

Opponents they have defeated in the BE, minus the losses to SF, have a combined record of 39-86 (if I counted correctly)

There is no reason (other than the noon start) that the Cats do not handle this team no matter where they play.

UC 65, Bull ****ers 54

But.......they played 'Cuse though as ****. They're solid. Would be a tough win.

[BearcatPali]

been to the USF campus a few times.. they have 50k plus in students and if they show up it'll be a tuff game. that said i think we can win it IF and only IF we take care of the ball and make shots. most importantly avoid long scoring droughts. Need strong inside presence with Yancy Gates and a decent offensive flow from the guards.

my prediction

UC-68
USF-62

[ME80]

Game similar to the old conference days against Saint Louiis UC 51 SF 48

[OCASCM07]

I'm not as worried about Park as I am about Cash. He put a picture of his ankle on Facebook and that thing is SWOLE UP!! If Cash can't go or has a bad wheel that effects his defense and offense I have major concerns about Sunday.

[Binturong05]

Originally Posted by OCASCM07

I'm not as worried about Park as I am about Cash. He put a picture of his ankle on Facebook and that thing is SWOLE UP!! If Cash can't go or has a bad wheel that effects his defense and offense I have major concerns about Sunday.

Could have implications in the Big Dance where the time off between games is even shorter.

[swilsonsp4]

There has been almost no buzz regarding this game in the Tampa Bay newspapers. The Tampa Tribune has had no articles about this contest. The last thing written about the Bulls was the recap of their loss Wednesday night at Syracuse. The writer made no mention of a pending home game on Sunday.

The St. Pete Times has an article today, but it’s more about USF’s chances of making the NCAA tourney for the first time in 20 years. The Bearcats are mentioned in passing. One of the paper’s columnists took a different look at the same topic (the Dance), but threw in a few lines about needing a quality win, which UC would provide, should the Bulls prevail.

I don’t know if USF may have done some TV/radio promotion, but they certainly didn’t get much support in writing. Neither paper talked about ticket sales. It will be interesting to see if the locals show up, considering the lack of publicity and poor home attendance thus far (4088 fans/home game in the BE). The Tampa Bay Times Forum seats 20,500 for basketball. Barring a barrage of walk-up fans for a noon start on Sunday, we should be able to hear shoes squeaking on the floor. That doesn’t necessarily bode well for UC, as the Cats have struggled in early games and this one may have the atmosphere of a morgue. I still think they prevail and I’ll stick with my 55-51 final.