Can you Bull-lieve it? Anticipation for USF basketball is at an all-time high

Here’s a sentence you may never have expected to read: USF is a basketball school.

Yeah, I know. We probably shouldn't get carried away by one good season for the men. It’s true that except for occasional starbursts that weren’t sustained, basketball at USF has mostly existed in obscurity for many years.

It was the natural response to season after season of mediocre play by the men’s team. And while Jose Fernandez and the women’s team regularly produced an excellent product, it seemed to exist in a vacuum because the sport couldn’t break through with the casual fan.

After all, teams like UConn and a few others were dominant, and it got a little monotonous.

That was especially true with March Madness.

Be honest, did you ever enter a pool and fill out a bracket for the women?

But with the start of the season just around the corner, this could be the year all of that changes.

“People have said this is a moment in time for women’s basketball, and Commissioner (Cathy) Engelbert and I would say this is not a moment in time. This is the beginning of something different,” American Athletic Conference Commissioner Tim Pernetti said.

“If you look at the success of WNBA and the success of the NWSL, it’s an opportunity for everyone to elevate women’s sports.”

Sure, teams like South Carolina and UConn are still excellent, but there is more depth throughout the women’s game, which translates to more interest.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect.

Interest in women’s college basketball is at an all-time high, and USF is poised to capitalize on that. It is the host school for the Women’s Final Four next spring in Tampa, so all the chatter about that can only benefit the Bulls.

Fernandez has a loaded, versatile team and a non-conference schedule that gives USF an opportunity to make a splash. Transfer guard Mama Dembele will run an up-tempo offense that should be highly entertaining. Forward Romi Levy was the AAC Newcomer of the Year last season. Vittoria Blasigh was last year's conference Freshman of the Year.

The Bulls are preseason favorites to win the AAC. If they can do that and snag a few games against a schedule that includes South Carolina, UConn, Louisville, Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Duke, they should finally get a decent seeding in the NCAA Tournament.

It seems USF always ends up on the dreaded 8-9 line for seeding, so even if the Bulls win that game, they have to face the No. 1 seed on their home floor. Advancing to the second weekend of the tournament would have Bulls Nation’s full attention,

Oh, and speaking of the Caitlin Clark effect, USF’s Sammie Puisis has the kind of long-range shooting ability that will capture eyeballs and generate fan enthusiasm.

We didn’t forget the men, though.

I haven’t seen the kind of enthusiasm for the Bulls since the early days of Lee Rose and the newly opened Sun Dome. Bobby Paschal coached USF’s first NCAA Tournament team, and Seth Greenberg did his best to lift the Bulls into prominence.

There is one difference between those coaches and the one USF has now.

The Bulls finally have a men’s coach who can build a program and, as I believe we’ll see, sustain one. Amir Abdur-Rahim was the runaway AAC Coach of the Year last season and drew national accolades for winning 25 games and the regular-season conference title.

The carryover effect of that is obvious. USF sold out the lower bowl at the Yuengling Center because people know a good thing when they see one. Just as important, that success fueled an unprecedented surge in student attendance at home games.

The atmosphere when USF knocked off nationally ranked Florida Atlantic last year was electric.

I never agreed with critics who said basketball would never amount to much at USF. The school has the resources to produce teams that can compete at a high level. That’s what is happening now.

Get your popcorn ready. This should be fun.