Friday, March 18
| No. 8 Miami (Fla.) 78, No. 9 South Florida 66 |
Box Score |
No. 8 Miami (Fla.) 78, No. 9 South Florida 66
One-and-done. It wasn't what the South Florida Bulls had in mind for their season's final chapter. But there were no answers for the torrid-shooting No. 8-seeded Miami Hurricanes, who eliminated the No. 9 Bulls 78-66 in Saturday afternoon's NCAA Tournament first-round game at Columbia, S.C.
"It's definitely not how you want it to end,'' USF coach Jose Fernandez said. "We were very inconsistent and it showed.''
The Bulls (24-9) trailed 24-11 after the first quarter and fell behind by 19 points in the second quarter, but went on a 10-2 run, capped by Sydni Harvey's buzzer-beating 3-pointer, to cut UM's advantage to 11 at halftime. USF twice cut it an eight-point game early in the third quarter, but the Hurricanes (21-12) went on a 15-4 run that extended the margin and thwarted the Bulls' hopes.
UM's 61.3-percent shooting performance in the first half was too difficult to overcome for Fernandez's Bulls. But the backcourt of Elena Tsineke (21 points, including 19 in the first half), Elisa Pinzan (19 points, eight in the fourth quarter) and Harvey (11 points) kept the Bulls alive. Overall, USF was 9-for-22 from 3-point range.
The Bulls twice cut it to a nine-point margin in the fourth quarter on a pair of runners by Pinzan, but UM was undaunted and never let it get closer.
"We won two quarters and another quarter was two points (margin),'' Fernandez said. "But they shot the ball extremely well. Uncharateristic for us, we didn't defend well. Give them credit. NCAA Tournament, they showed up more. We needed more guys to show up.''
USF's interior players, Bethy Mununga and Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu, each had six points and eight rebounds.
It was USF's seventh NCAA Tournament bid in the past nine seasons (not counting the COVID-cancelled event in 2020). After returning all significant players from last season's 19-4 American Athletic Conference champion squad — then defeating two top 10-ranked teams (including defending national champion Stanford) in November — the Bulls seemed positioned to win another title and perhaps get into the NCAA Tournament's second weekend for the first time in program history.
But the Bulls were swept by UCF during the regular season and lost against the Knights in the AAC Championship Game. Because of its strength of schedule, USF still earned a No. 9 NCAA seed, but drew a fast-finishing Miami squad that pulled a series of upsets and reached the program's first ACC Tournament Championship Game.
Had USF prevailed, it would have faced a monumental challenge on Sunday — facing top-ranked South Carolina, the tournament's overall No. 1 seed, on its home court with a Sweet 16 berth on the line.
The Bulls couldn't get that far. They were hampered by UM's height and depth (five players in double figures, 29 bench points, while USF essentially used a six-player rotation). The Hurricanes finished with 53.6-percent shooting.
In a season that seemed like it had one step forward and one step back, USF's NCAA road ended right where it began — in the first round.