The USF men’s basketball team had a day of reckoning following its disturbing home-court loss to Bethune-Cookman. The Bulls spoke honestly about where they were as a team and what had to happen for them to make sure nothing like that loss happens again.
Then, interim head coach Ben Fletcher made a couple of key changes to the starting lineup. He brought Kobe Knox and C.J. Stroud off the bench and moved guard C.J. Brown to the point. The idea was to free Jayden Reid off the ball where he could create more shots.
Did it work?
Oh yeah.
On Saturday afternoon, USF demolished visiting East Texas A&M 88-62 at the Yuengling Center.
Knox, coming off the bench for his first time as a Bull, had a team-high 19 points after going 0-for-5 from the floor and finishing with just two points against B-CC.
Quincy Ademokoya had his best game at USF with 16 points. Reid had the second double-double of his career with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Jimmie Williams closed out the double-digit scorers with 11 points.
“We know how good we are and we weren't gonna hang our heads on that last performance,” Knox said. “We were way better than that, so just look each other in the eye and tell each other that we will keep playing hard play together.”
Fletcher said he was pleased with both the approach to the game and the outcome.
“I thought these guys backed their words up with action. We talked about a lot yesterday, and I appreciated all of those guys having things to say, but like I told them, we can say anything, but it’s another thing to do it,” he said.
“I thought they did that. They backed up their words and played together as a team on both ends of the floor.”
East Texas, now 2-11, was the perfect foil for the frustrated Bulls to get back on track. USF’s bench outscored the visitors 44-22, and the Bulls scored 29 points off turnover while shooting 60.7 percent.
Fletcher said the lineup changes worked as he had hoped and made a point to single out Knox for how he handled coming off the bench.
“It can be tough for some guys who may not like that,” Fletcher said. “But he certainly seemed to respond to the role and played what the team needed today. I made sure to let him know that I was so proud of his growth.
“I thought he grew up tremendously yesterday during our meeting. He had some things to say, and he had some things said to him. He took it like a man, and he got up and addressed the team in a way that I hadn't seen a young man do. I'm so appreciative of him for that.”
The Bulls are off until December 28, when they host Webber International. They begin American Athletic Conference play on December 31 at home against East Carolina.