South Florida men's basketball trailed by 19 points Thursday night at DePaul with a little over 18 minutes to play. If you were watching on TV, you might have been tempted to go to bed.
But the wise USF fan quickly learned not to sleep on the Bulls, who shook off that deficit against a team predicted to be in the mix for a Big East Conference title. They stormed back and had the ball with a chance to at least send the game to overtime, only to fall 82-80 after Chris Davis, Jr.'s attempt at a driving layup in the lane against a 7-foot Blue Demon's defender missed the mark.
There is no such thing as a moral victory, of course. But losses can be categorized as expected, bad, or less harmful. This game falls in the latter category.
Another tight one on truTV sees @DePaulHoops outlast South Florida. Great battle from USF to make this competitive over the final stretch after trailing by 19. Had a shot for the tie.
— T3 (@T3Bracketology) November 6, 2026
This very likely continues to age well for DePaul as USF gels more throughout this season. Nice…
For starters, the Bulls may have found another long-range offensive weapon in 6-foot-8 forward Garrett Johnson. He led USF with 26 points, and except for a pair of free throws all of his points came on shots beyond the arc. He was 8-of-13 from downtown and that kind of shooting brought USF back into the game.
"We tried to free him as much as we could, andnhe made some really tough ones because they started to do a great job of just draping all over him," head coach Chris Mack said on the Bulls Unlimited broadcast afterward. "His gravity allowed him to get some good looks, and once he saw one or two go in, felt like the basket was really big for him.
"Great job by our team in terms of taking care of the ball. I thought we settled in offensively the last 30 minutes of the game. But that deficit, I'm going to keep referring to that, that really put us in a backwards position."
Another "backwards position" was the foul trouble that limited forward Zayden High to just 24 minutes. Former North Carolina coach Hubert Davis, now an analyst for TNT Sports, noted at halftime that fouls were a problem for High while he was with the Tar Heels.
Three-point shooting was also an issue for the Bulls in this game.
Although Johnson's production stood out, the rest of the Bulls were just 1-of-13 from long range.
If they had been 2-for-13, they might have walked out of the arena Thursday night with a victory that could resonate with the NCAA selection committee in March. That's why teams schedule tough non-conference opponents because it helps build an impressive resume for later on -- in addition to toughening them up for conference play.
"We've got to play two halves. That's basketball," Mack said. "We've got to learn from it. I'm really proud of the resilience, the relentlessness our players showed in the second half. And so early in the season, we're going to get so much better because of experiences like this."
Next up for USF is a trip to Annapolis, Md. on Wednesday for a Veterans Day game against Saint Joseph's. It's a rare 3 p.m. start against a team that finished third in the Atlantic 10 last season and won a pair of NIT road games.
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