USF men's basketball does what what expected in solid win over Rice

It was supposed to be a comfortable win for the USF men's basketball team Wednesday night over Rice, and it was.

The Bulls dominated the Owls 75-56.

"When you win, they're all Picassos," Bulls coach Bryan Hodgson said on the post-game radio show.

The victory was USF's 20th of the season, a level the Bulls have reached for only the seventh time in the program's 55-year history. A win on Sunday afternoon at home against Tulane would clinch at least a tie for the regular-season American Conference championship.

As long as the Bulls finish no worse than second in the conference, they will receive byes to the conference tournament semifinals. The winner, of course, received an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

This was also USF's sixth consecutive American Conference win, equaling the second-longest such streak in school history. It was USF's eighth conference road victory, tying the program record set in 2023-24. The Bulls can break that mark on March 5 when they travel to Memphis.

This game was a statistical mismatch from the start.

USF entered as the highest-scoring team in the conference with 88.7 points per game, which is 11th-best in the country. The Owls have one of the most porous defenses in the league, ranking 10th out of 13 teams.

For this game, though, it was stepping the step in front of them.

"Just another one, to be honest with you," Hodgson said. "The record that's important to me is s at the end of the year, right? We've just got to keep taking this one game at a time."