USF's Sammie Puisis heads back to her Ohio roots as the Bulls play in the NCAA tourney

Next game: NCAA first round, USF (22-10) vs. Tennessee (22-9) in Columbus, Ohio

When: 8 p.m. Friday, March 21

TV/radio: ESPN and Bulls Unlimited

Drive north on Interstate 71 from Mason, Ohio and for about 90 minutes you will see a lot of cornfields and greenery until you arrive in Columbus, the state capital.

It’s likely that many people from Mason will make that trip on Friday to watch 6-foot-1 guard Sammie Puisis lead the USF women’s basketball team in a first-round NCAA tournament matchup against Tennessee.

In high school, Puisis played for the Mason Comets and led them to the state Final Four in 2018. That was in the Schottenstein Center, the same building on the Ohio State University campus where the 12th-seeded Bulls will go hunting for the upset win.

“I have a great support, like my family, relatives, old friends from high school, AAU coaches, they're all coming,” Puisis said.

“It'll be really exciting. Going back to Ohio after so many years, it's pretty sweet.”

Mason is a bedroom community about a half-hour north of Cincinnati, and explosive population growth there over last two decades fueled what generally is a powerhouse program. Even against that backdrop though, Puisis stands in rare air.

She was selected to the 2018-19 All USA Ohio Girls Basketball First Team and was a McDonald’s All American.  Ohio Girls Basketball Report Associate Director Bryce McKey said Puisis was “one of the elite shooters in the country, if not the best shooter in the country.”

So, it wasn’t a surprise that she had her choice among multiple elite college programs. She eventually chose Florida State over Xavier, Arkansas, Michigan State, Purdue, Wisconsin, and, yes, Ohio State.

After three seasons of solid contributions to the Seminoles, she transferred to USF in 2022. It helped that she has family in Fort Myers. Her sister, Katie, played volleyball at Florida Gulf Coast and her brother, Eddie, played basketball at Nova Southeastern.

Whatever her reason for transferring to USF, the Bulls have been grateful ever since. She has been one of the best three-point shooters in the nation since arriving from FSU, but more than that she has been praised for being a great teammate.

This year was a struggle at times as Puisis came back from a devastating ACL tear that cost her the 2023-24 season. Puisis admitted it took a while to regain her confidence, but her signature moment in a game against Rice removed all doubt that she was back.

The Bulls were down by three points at home with two seconds left in regulation and the Owls had the ball. However, they threw it away with no time off the clock. USF didn’t have a timeout, but the Bulls didn’t need one. There was only one place where the ball could go.

Mama Dembele threw the inbounds pass to Puisis, who buried a three-pointer that sent the game into overtime. The Bulls eventually won in three extra sessions.

“I saw it midair, and I knew it was going in. I knew when she got it in the corner, she had a good look, and her feet were set,” USF coach Jose Fernandez  said. “It was there because she was gonna (shoot), she turned her inside shoulder, and she got her feet square, and the ball was rotating.

“I just walked. I knew it was in, you know, the one that she wanted to take at the end, and she felt it, You could see that was going right where it was supposed to.”

USF’s Carla Brito added, “I couldn't believe it, honestly, but like, I wasn't really surprised, because she's tough. She's really, really good. I'm so glad to have her as my teammate.”

Puisis already earned her MBA and could be headed to a career in business, or perhaps coaching. If the WNBA is interested though, she will take the call.

First things first, though. While Puisis is familiar with the Schottenstein Center, the memory isn’t so good. Her Comets didn’t come home with the championship.

She’s back, though, with a chance to make a happy ending, with her friends and family from Mason for a cheering section. The Ohio kid has come home and that’s cool, but first things first.

“It's been business since going into the conference tournament,” she said. “Getting to the NCAA tournament was one of our main goals. And now that we're here, we just want to enjoy it, not to put too much pressure on ourselves.

“We know we can play with these teams. We showed that we deserve to be here. So we just want to have fun. Yeah, we had a tough schedule November, December, so like, we're ready for this. We're not putting pressure in ourselves. We just want to enjoy the moment and also enjoy it with this special group that will have so much fun.”