USF men's basketball turned a roster shakeup Into a fast-track rebuild

About three weeks ago, new USF men's basketball coach Chris Mack was looking at roster that, well, had no players.

The Transfer Portal opened on April 7 and the Bulls who had eligibility remaining sprinted for the exits.

That was then.

Today, Mack is well on his way to filling the vacancies. USF now has nine incoming transfers plus freshman-to-be Jake Feldhaus, the Kentucky high school player of the year.

The latest addition from the portal is 6-foot--7 forward Joshua Lewis, whose father, Fred Lewis, was one of USF's best players ever. Joshua, a 4-star player who led Tampa's Blake High School to the state finals, originally committed to USF two years ago but decommitted after the sudden passing of Amir Abdur-Rahim.

“It’s still something we’re dealing with as a family,” Fred Lewis told Prime Time Preps last year. “We were really fond of Amir and we were really excited about Joshua going out there and developing and having him so close to be able to watch him. It threw our family for a loop.”

He wound up at Louisana, which was overjoyed to get ESPN's No. 64 player in the country and the No. 17 small forward in the Class of 2025. He had a solid freshman season going until he tore his patellar tendon in late January.

At the time of the injury, he was averaging 11.5 points per game in the Sun Belt Conference, including a 26-point performance against ULM.

Recovery time for an injury like this can take anywhere from 6-to-12 months, depending on the severity, so it's uncertain how much Lewis can contribute in the 2026-27 season. But if he needs a medical redshirt, the Bulls would still have him for three seasons.

The rebuild is not complete. As Mack alluded to, there are four roster spots that need to be filled. But it has been a rapid transformation for the Bulls since Mack looked around on April 7 and saw that he had no players.

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