USF Men's Basketball vs. UConn Preview/GameThread

It's been a long, long, long layoff for the Bulls, as they take on the Connecticut Huskies tonight at the Sun Dome after eight days off.

Because of the American Athletic Conference's slapdash scheduling this season, every team has had at least one gap between conference games of six days or longer. AAC teams are 2-9 after such breaks. Louisville and Temple had two such breaks. Temple went so far as to schedule two non-conference games against local rivals LaSalle and Villanova during conference season to stay sharp.

(As an aside, was USF asleep at the wheel when conference schedules came out? Why didn't they schedule a non-cofnerence game against an in-state team? Bethune Cookman in Daytona only has one game scheduled between Feb 15 and March 1.)

Since we never know what Bulls team will show up, suffice to say this gap does not bode well for the Bulls.

Also not boding well for the Bulls is the fact that they were shellacked by the Huskies up in Storrs, Connecticut. A fortnight ago, the Bulls lost 83-40 in a feckless performance that lacked all guts and guile. No Bulls player scored in double digits, and the whole team hit 12 shots.

The Huskies are led by 6'1" Shabazz Napier and 6'9"Deandre Daniels. The high-low duo combine for about 30 ppg, and both shoot over 40% from three. USF will have to defend the three, which they've been fairly poor at all season.

We always hit up the good folks at statsheet for the four factors, but let's also take a gander at USF's point differential trend.

Obviously, the schedule will get tougher during conference play since the AAC is a good (if disjointed) league, and the non-conference schedule was super tough, but the downward trajectory is a bit alarming.