The USF men’s basketball team was rocked last spring when the Bulls’ top three scorers entered the transfer portal instead of returning for one season in green and gold.
Even in today’s fluid college sports environment, losing stalwarts like Chris Youngblood, Selton Miguel, and Kasean Pryor was going to leave a mark no matter who USF replaced them with.
Youngblood and Miguel are key pieces for their new teams, Alabama and Maryland respectively. Pryor unfortunately blew out his Achilles tendon early in the season at Louisville.
A fourth Bull – Gerald Jones III – transferred to Chicago State but is not listed on the team’s statistics.
Youngblood, last season’s American Athletic Conference Co-Player of the Year, suffered an ankle injury in preseason practice that kept him out until mid-December.
Saturday’s game against Kentucky was just his ninth appearance of the season but he was a solid contributor with 10 points in 24 minutes off the bench in ‘Bama’s 102-97 win.
“We knew what we were getting with him,” ‘Bama coach Nate Oats said after a win against Texas A&M. “From South Florida, he’s conference Player of the Year, he shoots it at a really high clip. He just had to get off that surgery and get himself back comfortable.”
Miguel, last season’s AAC Sixth Man of the Year and the conference’s Most Improved Player, is getting a lot of work at Maryland.
He’s averaging 25 minutes of court time and has 12 double-figure scoring games. including 24 against Syracuse.
Pryor is holding out hope that he can return next season for the Cardinals. He recently traveled with the team for a road game and stopped by the Louisville pregame radio show.
"I won't know anything with my redshirt until after the season ... once all those rules come to fruition, there's definitely potential of me being back here next year," he said
The Bulls added transfers Jamille Reynolds from Cincinnati, Quincy Ademokoya from Kennesaw State, and De'Ante Green from Florida State.
They’ve had their moments but haven’t been able to recreate the magic that the departed players made last season. To be fair, though, it was always going to be a struggle for the Bulls this season as they coped with the transfers and then the death of head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim.
Reynolds, at 6-11, has had the biggest impact as a solid force in the middle.
He averages 12.1 points per game along with a team-high 113 rebounds and 20 blocked shots.
Ademokoya averages 7.1 points per game, mostly off the bench, with four games in double figures.
Green doesn’t score much – about six points per game – but he is the Bulls’ second-leading rebounder.