After first half doldrums, USF basketball erupts in dominant second half to beat UTSA

At halftime Wednesday night there was no sugarcoating what was going on with the USF men's basketball team at the Yuengling Center.

They trailed UTSA, the last-place team in the Americaj Conference, by two points. Even worse, they had allowed the Roadrunners to score 50 points in 20 minutes. What in the world was going on here?

"Our defensive intensity was awful," head coach Bryan Hodgson said.

Well, it got better -- a lot. better.

USF restored order in the second half, running away for a 109-88 victory. It was their sixth game with at least 100 points this season, the most by any program in conference history. That kept the Bulls within one game of conference leader Tulsa, which visits the Bulls on Sunday.

The Golden Hurricane avoided defeat on Wednesday, nipping Florida Atlantic 78-76 in Boca Raton.

If the Bulls have another lackadasical first half ion Sunday, it will not end well.

"Obviously, we scored 48 points in the first half," Hodgson said.

"I mean, we defensively gave up 50 to that team. That was just not great."

Well, as a wise man once said, you play to win the game. That's a fan's perspective, of course, and, as a head coach, Hodgson understands that the standard of play he sets for his team must be met.

For 20 minutes Wednesday, against a team that is now 0-10 in the American and 4-18 overall, it was not.

We talked about it all week.

"You've got to throw their record out the window, you got to look at their last four or five games. They've been in battles," Hodgson said.

"They take temple down to the down to the buzzer. They take UAB down to the final minute. They're going to fight. It's college basketball. They're not going to quit. And we didn't approach the first half that way. I'm not sure why."

Whatever message Hodgson delivered at halftime, it was well received. The second half, was a different story.

USF hit 24 of 35 shots in the second half for 68.5 percent. For the game, the Bulls scored 26 points off turnovers. Izayiah Nelson led the way with 25 points on 11-of-14 shooting.

Crisis averted.

However, you can be sure that the focus of practice in the next few days will be a reminder that the game actually starts with the opening tipoff.

"We just we had a conversation at halftime and we basically said, listen, we're gonna sub and we're gonna do things based on attitude and effort and just will in the second half," Hodgson said.

"If you don't play that way, I'm just going to sub you out. And we did that on a couple of occasions."

A seat on the bench is a powerful communication tool.