If the USF men's basketball team fails to make it to the NCAA Tournament, the Bulls will point to Sunday's game against Wichita State as a big reason why that happened.
Playing at home and with the mometum of three straight American Conference wins, the Bulls promptly fell behind by 15 points. Awakened, they rallied and eventually led by 13 points in the second half, only to see the Shockers, well, shock them by coming all the way back to force overtime.
And if Bulls fans didn't like the double-overtime home-court conference loss to UAB, the sequel was just as painful as Wichita left the Yuengling Center with an 86-85 win. It dropped USF to 3-2 in the conference, and it left head coach Brian Hodgson pointing the finger at himself.
"I've gotta do a better job preparing us to win close basketball games, overtime games, tight games in general," a somber Hodgson said in his post-game briefing. "I'm doing these guys a disservice. I've got to put us in a better situation to win basketball games against good teams.
"I've got to do a better job preparing us to come out and not put ourselves in a hole down 15 points. , Um, laxadaisical, and I don't I don't have an answer to why that happened, but it's my job to make sure that doesn't happen. You know, ultimately this is on me."
The Sunday afternoon shootout was a tale of three games in one.
The first was a 16-4 run by the Shockers midway through the first half that eventually led to a 27-12 lead for the visitors with 10:07 left in the first half.
Worried?
The Bulls responded with a 21-4 run of their own, actually taking the lead before going to halftime down by one point. The run continued in the opening minutes of the second half after a 3-pointer by Joseph Pinion put USF in front 51-38 with 17:27 remaining.
The Bulls had the momentum, the crowd was whipped up, and there was every reason to believe this would be a signature comeback win. But like the UAB game, where USF collapsed after holding a 10-point lead in the second half, this one got away too.
It left the home crowd stunned and the Bulls seeking answers. Games like this can cause seismic changes in USF's NET ranking, a key metric used in determining the NCAA field. The Bulls slid 15 spots in the NET, falling to No. 71 after the loss.
There's a lot of work to do to climb back up the ladder.
"And, you know, our guys fight ... credit to Wichita State, hey just kicked our butt, in the tough guy stuff, and overtime," Hodgson said. "I've got, obviously, to reevaluate what I'm doing to prepare us to be in those situations, so we can make sure that we don't continue to end up on the wrong side here. That's it."
Yep.