Temple Preview/Game Thread

It's Senior Day for men's basketball. So let's forget about the won-lost record for a couple hours, and honor Victor Rudd and Martino Brock, who will be playing their last home game for USF today.

You never know what you're going to see on Senior Day. People get emotional, as a chapter of their lives comes to an end. One of my greatest memories of USF athletics -- a story I've told many times -- is of Chucky Atkins kissing the USF logo on the floor as he left the Sun Dome court for the last time, in 1996. After he helped lead an upset of a then-good UAB team, in what would be only one of two USF conference wins that season.

It's a tall order, but if Victor Rudd can score 28 points today, he would pass Augustus Gilchrist for tenth place on the all-time scoring list for USF. This is especially impressive since Rudd played only three seasons at USF, compared to four for most of the others on that list. If USF can advance in the conference tournament, he could also pass #9 Hakim Shahid (he would need 71 points), and #8 Gary Alexander (91 points).

TRIVIA TIME: How many of USF's top seven all-time scorers can you name?

Martino Brock has quietly become USF's second leading scorer on the season, with 9.2 points per game. He has produced in huge bursts at times, such as his 21 against UCF. His mother Kathy, who has only gotten to see him play in person a few times, is flying in from Memphis for the game.

For those of you thinking ahead to the conference tournament, I have worked out the scenarios for USF's first-round opponent:

If Houston beats Central Florida on Saturday, the 8-9 game in the conference tournament will be Temple-USF, regardless of what happens in the Temple-USF game. The winner of the Temple-USF game on Saturday would be the #8 seed, but they'd still play each other. (UPDATE: Houston lost to UCF on Friday.)

If UCF and USF both win, the 8-9 game would be USF vs UCF. For what it's worth, USF would be the 8 seed.

If UCF wins and USF loses, USF finishes dead last at 3-13, and would play Rutgers in the 7-10 game.

As for who USF might play if they get out of the first round: Cincinnati and Louisville are both 14-3, and will be the #1 and #2 seeds. Cincinnati plays at Rutgers this weekend, while Louisville hosts Connecticut. The tiebreakers are complicated to work out, because the applicable tiebreaker is "best record vs. best remaining available team", which may vary depending on other games. Suffice it to say that Cincinnati would be a better matchup for USF than Louisville.

Also happening this weekend are baseball vs. Northwestern; the women's basketball team vs. Temple in a 3-6 conference tournament game in Connecticut; softball vs. Utah and St. Joseph's on Sunday; and tennis vs UNC-Wilmington (men) and Old Dominion (women). Feel free to talk about any of those, or the ongoing Athletic Director search.