The USF women's basketball team is peaking as the American Conference draws near.
The Bulls pounded Florida Atlantic 75-55 Saturday at the Yuengling Center for their fourth win in five games. They improved to 17-11 and 10-5 in the conference, where they share third place with North Texas.
Rice (24-3, 14-0) continues to lead the conference.
USF has three games left before the conference tournament opens on March 10 in Birmingham.
Interim head coach Michele Woods-Baxter opened her post-game remarks with a tribute to Joey Knight, who covered USF for the Tampa Bay Times. He died on Friday morning after a two-year battle with cancer.
"He was one of the most upstanding people that I've met," she said. "When I was an assistant coach, he never treated me like an assistant coach. He would always come and talk to me. He would give me hugs. I know he had a wonderful relationship with Jose (Fernandez), but he treated everybody like they were someone special."
On the game, she was pleased with her team's quick start. The Bulls led 19-6 after the first quarter and cruised from there.
"We did pretty good in the first quarter," she said. "We've had a couple of quarters -- I'm not sure if it was the first quarter -- where we've played really well, but sometimes offensively not so much. I thought this one, our offense and our defense both (played well)."
Carla Brito had her sixth consecutive double-double for the Bulls -- 10 points and 14 rebounds. This is second longest streak in that category since the 1999-2000 season.
USF shot 53.6 percent from the field, which is the Bulls' highest in conference play so far this season and third-highest overall.
The Bulls are off until February 28, when they travel to North Texas before returning home on March 3 against Temple for Senior Night. They close the regular season on March 7 at Tulane.