Bryan Hodgson promised USF men's basketball would be fast, furious, and entertaining. As an opening-night crowd of 6,531 at the Yuengling Center will attest, he was as good as his word.
The Bulls all-out approach resembled the last lap on the high banks at Daytona as they blew past FAMU 102-67 with five players in double figures, led by Division II transfer Wes Enis with 22 points. He had five of USF's 10 3-poiinters.
The 35-point win was tied for the second largest margin of victory for an American Conference coach making his debut.
Was Hodgson pleased?
Not really.
"I'm not going to come in here and say something I don't believe," he said in his post-game briefing. "So that's just what it is. We've got to do a lot better before we step back on the court Saturday against a really, really good George Washington team.
"I don't think that we dictated the pace tonight. I don't think we were great defensively, and didn't execute to my liking."
Granted, there was a lot about the game that needs to be cleaned up, but that's fairly typical on opening-night -- especially on a team where 13 of the 15 players are new to the program.
However, there was also a lot to like.
After a slow start, the Bulls took off toward the end of the first half. Enis sank four 3-points in a little more than five minutes to put USF up by 14 points at the break. The Bulls' depth and electric playing style wore down the visitors, The bench contributed 37 points and USF out-rebouned the Rattlers 46-29.
Another encouraging sign: USF sank 34 of 40 free throw attempts.and forced 21 turnovers.
But Hodgson demands perfection.
"Instead of talking our switches, we got caught out of a stance several times, got back-doored, gave up some second-chance points.," he said. "We gave up some what we call dip threes, you know, poor closeouts. Transition defense was just okay. So got to get a lot better in all those areas."
They will.