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Questions about USF men's basketball team could be answered during trip to Spain

By Joe Henderson

Memphis' Jayden Hardaway (25) goes for a layup during the game between the University of South Florida and the University of Memphis at FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn., on Thursday, January 18, 2024.
Memphis' Jayden Hardaway (25) goes for a layup during the game between the University of South Florida and the University of Memphis at FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn., on Thursday, January 18, 2024. / Chris Day/The Commercial Appeal / USA
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The men’s basketball season at USF doesn’t officially begin until November, but the work of building the team begins much sooner.

The Bulls have had significant roster turnover since the end of their 25-8 season in March. To get a head start on figuring out how the new pieces fit together, the Bulls will travel to Spain from August 2-11 and play exhibition games against select teams in Barcelona, Madrid, and Malaga.

The Bulls have eight new players this season, including three freshmen. They return seven players.

The trip should give the players and coaches an opportunity to gain some much-needed cohesion, and USF needs to look no further than the start of last season to see how important that can be.

The Bulls stumbled to a 2-4 start while adjusting to a new head coach and multiple new players. It took about a month to work things out, but then USF won 21 of its next 22 games, including 15 in a row, and won the regular-season American Athletic Conference championship – a first in school history.

However, losses to Central Michigan, Maine, Hofstra, and  UMass in that first month of the season proved fatal to USF’s hope of receiving an at-large bid after the Bulls were knocked out of the conference tournament.

USF settled for an NIT bid and got some solace by knocking off UCF 83-77 on the road before the Bulls were eliminated by Virginia Commonwealth in the next round.

The top priority this season will be replacing the firepower lost when the Bulls saw three key players -- guard Selton Miguel, forward Kasean Pryor, and forward Chris Youngblood.

Youngblood (15.3 points per game), Miguel (14.7), and Pryor (13.0) were the three leading scorers on the team.

Pryor was also USF’s leading rebounder with 7.9 boards per game.

Who is going to replace all that? Maybe head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim will have some of those answers when his team returns from Spain.

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