The USF men's basketball team is headlong into the American Conference race, with a pair of home games coming up and a chance to improve to 4-1 in league play.
The Bulls host East Carolina on Wednesday before welcoming Wichita State to the Yuengling Center on Sunday afternoon.
On paper, the Bulls should win both games, but -- this just in -- games aren't played on paper, and you never take league games for granted. However, watching how USF dismantled Tulsa to close out the road trip should leave fans with good feelings as the Bulls seek their first NCAA tournament bid since 2012 and only their third in history.
Tulsa was 13-2 entering the game and had the highest NET rating in the American. Wes Enis made short work of that with eight 3-pointers in the first half as the Bulls built a 15-point lead. He finished with 32 points.
Isaiyah Nelson was his usual productive self with 22 points and 14 rebounds before fouling out.
"When I looked the other day, he was analytically at least in the lead for conference player of the year. I'm super proud of him. He just puts in a ton of work, he deserves it, everything that he's getting right now," Bulls coach Bryan Hodgson said.
"When I inherited him in Arkansas State, he was like a baby deer. He couldn't, he couldn't do two things at once, right? He couldn't run and dunk. Everything was like a stop-and-think moment. And man, he's just grown so much in the last two years. I showed our freshman a game-by-game box from his sophomore year with me. In the first six games that I coached him, he averaged five to seven minutes a game. By the end of the year, he was playing 38 minutes a game."
As a reward for the two wins on the road trip, the Bulls leaped 20 spots to No. 58 in the NET rankings, a tool the selection committee uses to set the NCAA tournament field. It's the highest ranking in program history, and it has the potential to rise even higher.
The rugged non-conference schedule head coach Bryan Hodgson put together is paying off. USF. The Bulls have the 30th-ranked strength of schedule and the December 4 win over Utah State is paying major dividends. It is the only loss so far for the Aggies, who are 14-1 and have risen to 13th in the NET.
"I'm extremely confident we could have scheduled 13 (non-conference) wins," Hodgson said."We could have bought several more home games and we would have walked into the conference 13-0, 12-1, at a minimum 11-2. Instead, we tried to find the toughest schedule we could play. We just feel like we learn in that time. You grow. If you don't hit adversity, you don't know what you've got in that locker room."
The conference race is still crystallizing, but let's just say that so far it looks a lot different than the preseason coaches' predictions.
Memphis, the preseason favorite, is an unsightly 7-8 overall after falling 89-78 at Florida Atlantic. The result left head coach Penny Hardaway "totally disappointed."
Memphis HC Penny Hardaway said he was “totally disappointed” again by his team’s energy/effort in today’s road loss to FAU.
— Parth Upadhyaya (@pupadhyaya_) January 11, 2026
I asked him what he’s done to get through to his players and what he can still do.
“The talking is done. We’ve talked enough. Guys just gotta step up and… pic.twitter.com/DfpVcxnrxC
USF and Tulane were picked second and third respectively, and both are holding up their ends. Tulane is 3-0 in the American and gave Florida Atlantic its only conference loss. Not much was expected of Tulsa or Temple, but thusfar they're proving to be better than believed.