South Florida Preview
Tuesday, November 18 2008 by Tiki
Living in Tampa, you’d think I would know something about the South Florida basketball team. And you’d be half-right. They suck. They have sucked for 3 years, finishing last in the Big East in each of the past 3 years. That said, I do not know all that much about the actual team. There is very little fan support, even among students and alumni. The football team gets all the support due to their recent success, while the basketball program suffers. I attended the USF game against Syracuse last year, and there were maybe a couple thousand people there.
None of the above is relevant to tomorrow’s game, which takes place at JPJ in Charlottesville. Still, I needed an intro and there it is.
Gone from last year’s last place team is their best player, PF Kentrell Gransberry, who averaged a double-double each of the past two years after transferring from LSU. In the backcourt, they return last year’s leading scorer SG Dominique Jones, along with PG Chris Howard and Arizona transfer G Jesus Verdejo. Up front, the starting forwards are 6-9 senior Mobolaji Ajayi and 6-7 freshman Eladio Espinosa. Espinosa played his high school ball at Hargrave Military Academy in VA.
Along with Espinosa, C Alex Rivas-Sanchez, 6-1 PG Justin Leemow, and 6-3 G Gaby Belardo join 3 other freshmen on a roster that include 8 newcomers in all. This also includes Mike Mercer, a junior transfer from Georgia who will not be eligible until January, and Augustus Gilchrist a transfer from Virginia Tech via Maryland, who may not be eligible all season. The final member of their rotation is Aris Williams, a talented 6-9 forward who has struggled with injuries during his career.
USF will stick with a 3 guard lineup more often than not, and although they will give touches to their big men, the guards will still take most of the shots. Jones, Howard and Verdejo are all bigger guards who are good at getting into the paint and drawing contact, although Howard is a subpar FT shooter. Verdejo is their top outside threat, while Jones, Howard and Espinosa will shoot the 3 if it is open.
Defensively, the Bulls struggled to force turnovers last season, finishing among the bottom 10% of teams in the nation. They did manage force 16 (including) 7 steals in their season opener against SMU. The Bulls figure to struggle on the glass as well, after losing one of the nation’s top rebounders in Gransberry. Jones is their leading returning rebounder, with under 5 a game.
It is hard to make any real judgements based on Sunday night’s VMI game. The pace of that game was so unlike what we will face in this one, that it will not compare at all. The final of their SMU game was 60-46. Part of that was due to a slower pace and part of that was due to the teams combining to shoot 32% from the field. Also, USF is not a deep team, and because of their youth, they may be prone to getting into foul trouble.
For Virginia to win this game, we will probably want to speed up the game somewhat, and try to get easy looks. After shooting 3-16 from deep against VMI, I do not want to see the Hoos playing a passive half court game and jacking up 3s late in the shot clock. Mike Scott has size and athleticism on the entire USF frontcourt, so he needs to get touches inside. Tunji (and Sene, if can play) may also have success inside due to the height advantage.
I have concerns about our perimeter defenders getting out-muscled by USF’s bigger guards. This is especially true at PG, where Howard has a good 20-25 pounds on both Zeglinski and Baker. Considering our lack of true ballhandlers, we do not want those two getting into foul trouble.
All told, we have advantages all over the court against USF, plus the advantage of playing on our home floor. But because both teams are young and inexperienced anything can happen.