The South Florida Bulls (23-8) return to the basketball floor Saturday afternoon, where they will take on the Charlotte 49ers (17-16) in the semi-finals of the AAC basketball tournament.
Charlotte punched their ticket to the conference semifinals by upsetting UAB 83-78 on Friday afternoon. USF was given an automatic bid to the semi-finals by winning the regular season American Conference crown.
The Bulls enter this game as one of the hottest teams in the country, playing their best basketball of the season, riding a nine-game winning streak. The last time the Bulls lost a game was back on January 31 in Philadelphia, 79-78 to Temple.
This will be the second meeting in less than a week for these two teams, as the Bulls beat Charlotte 90-62 last Sunday to win the American Conference regular-season title and earn an automatic berth in the conference semi-finals.
The only negative stat going into this game is that the Bulls are 1-3 in neutral-site games this season.
Charlotte has lived by the three-point shot in this tournament. The 49ers have made 26 three-pointers in the two tournament wins and put up an average of eight three-point shots per game. In last week’s game, in which we witnessed the Bulls’ best defensive effort from start to finish, USF held Charlotte to 8/30 shooting from three-point range.
The Bulls come into the game leading the conference in scoring, rebounding, offensive rebounds, and assists.
USF is led by AAC Defensive Player of the Year Izaiah Nelson, who is averaging 15.8 PPG and 9.8 RPG.
The key to a USF win is two-fold.
Guard the three-point line. USF cannot afford to let Charlotte jack up threes all night. It will take a defensive effort just as good, if not better, than the one we witnessed last week to help secure a USF win.
Own the boards. USF has been an excellent rebounding team all season, and they will need to continue to do that against this scrappy Charlotte team.
Force turnovers. USF forced 15 Charlotte turnovers, which led to 17 points in their last meeting, and the Bulls will need more of the same to get the win against the 49ers.
The key to a Charlotte win is to control the tempo. They will need to shut down the up-tempo style that USF likes to play and force them to play a deliberate half-court game. If Charlotte can limit quick transition opportunities for the Bulls, they will at least stand a chance of staying in the game.
The Bulls offense starts with guard CJ Brown, who leads the conference in assists at 5.0 per game, which is second in the conference. The duo of Wes Enis and Joe Pinion, the best backcourt duo in the conference, have been unstoppable this season as the duo each made 100 three-pointers this season, a program record. Enis leads the conference in three-point shots made per game at 3.4.
The Bulls were in this position just two years ago. They entered the AAC tournament as regular-season conference champions and were upset by UAB in the conference semi-finals, 78-56.
The Bulls will look to win their second conference title in program history in Birmingham this weekend. USF has won just one conference tournament. That was back in 1990 when the Bulls won the Sun Belt Conference crown, earning an automatic NCAA bid.
Coach Bryan Hodgson discussed playing the same team twice in a week.
“We’re going to play a team that we played twice already in our conference,” he said. “We’re going to really spend time looking at the things we did well against those teams, fix the things that we didn’t do well, and attack that game one possession at a time. That’s how you win in March.”
In almost every category, USF has the advantage, which makes them the overwhelming favorite in the game. USF has been installed as a 14.5-point favorite, according to DraftKings.