Escape act: Next 3 games critical for USF women after narrowly avoiding upset at ECU

Next game: UTSA (17-2, 8-0) at USF (13-8, 6-2)

When: Wednesday, January 29, 7 p.m.

Media: ESPN+ and Bulls Unlimited

The next three games for the USF women’s basketball team will likely tell the story of how successful their regular season will be.

Following Saturday’s narrow 63-60 escape at East Carolina, the Bulls will face the three teams ahead of them in the American Athletic Conference standings.

It starts on Wednesday against UTSA, 17-2 overall and 8-0 in conference play. Interestingly, the Bulls are one spot ahead of the Roadrunners in the NCAA’s NET rankings, a key metric used to determine which teams can get at-large bids if they don’t win their conference tournaments.

The Bulls, preseason favorites to win the conference title, lead all AAC teams in the NET rankings even though they are in fourth place in the league standings. USF’s strength of schedule and the win over 10th-ranked Duke have no doubt contributed to that.

Following the UTSA game, the Bulls will host North Texas and then travel to Temple. They lost earlier at North Texas but have not played the other two teams.

For a long time Saturday, it looked like East Carolina had the Bulls on the ropes. The home-standing Pirates led by 10 with 6:53 left in the fourth period. After USF rallied and pulled ahead by two with under a minute left, ECU regained the lead on a 3-pointer by Jayla Hearp with five seconds left.

That’s when sophomore guard Vittoria Blasigh went to work.

“Coach Jose (Fernandez) drew something for me, and I was like, I'm gonna drive it and try to score,” she said.

She did just that, completing a layup with 1.1 seconds left.

“We set a back screen and got it to her on the baseline,” Fernandez said on the post-game radio show. “We knew there wasn't going to be any (defensive) help there, and she drove it and got it done.”

ECU was called for a technical foul, leading to a pair of free throws by Sammie Puisis for the final margin to complete the escape act for USF.

Blasigh had a game-high 19 points, including three 3-pointers, and USF outscored the Pirates 18-5 in the final seven minutes as the Bulls avoided what would have been a crippling upset.

Now, the attention turns to the high-stakes game against UTSA, and Fernandez was blunt about what the Bulls need to do, saying simply, “We’ve got to play a lot better than this.”