Bulls Bullied by Owls, Remain Winless in Conference

Well we didn’t really transfer. But we dang well should. The Bulls have lost their last ELEVEN GAMES. All of which were American Athletic Conference contests ... with the freshest being today’s 83-74 loss to the Temple Owls.

Temple opened with a three pointer on the first possession …. then a dunk … then another three. And that can pretty much sum up the entire first half, but that won’t satisfy my word count requirement, so here ya go.

Freshman forward Tulio Da Silva finally got USF on the board with a jumper after three minutes of play.

The Owls grabbed ANOTHER three, but a little 6-0 run allowed the Bulls to cut Temple’s lead to 15-10. Don’t get too excited because over the next three minutes, the Owls responded with a 12-2 run of their own to grab a 15-point lead.

BASICALLY, Temple was ridiculous from the three-point range. With 6:23 to play, back-to-back treys from senior guard Daniel Dingle (who had three in the first half alone) put the Owls at 61 percent from beyond the arc, going 8-of-14.

Temple ended the half on a four-minute, 13-0 run, and grabbed a 46-23 lead by the buzzer.

What went wrong:

• The Owls went 18-for-29 (season best 62 percent) from the field; The Bulls were 11-for-30 (37 percent)
• USF didn’t get to the free throw line once lol
• The Bulls were out-rebounded 20-10

Da Silva had a team-high 10 points for the Bulls, and Dingle led all scorers with 11 points at the half.

Sophomore forward Luis Santos opened second half scoring with a jumper. And, what do ya know? Dingle quickly knocked down another three. But hey, Santos responded with another jumper. SO COME THROUGH, LU.

Freshman center Ernest Aflakpui got himself to the free throw line and grabbed five straight points for the Owls. Speaking of drawing fouls, with nine minutes to play, Santos drew one on a layup to rack up 11 points. He followed up on the other side of the court with a block on Dingle … who (of course) responded with another three-pointer. *shrugs*

A 7-0 run by the Bulls cut the lead to 11 points (68-57) with a little over five minutes to play. And that was pretty exciting if you ask me because Temple led by as much as 27 points. But guess who ended Temple’s drought? DINGLE. Guess what kind of shot it was? A THREE. That marked Temple’s season-high 12 three pointers. Meanwhile, the Bulls knocked down a total of five.

One of those triples was from sophomore guard Troy Hoslton with under two minutes to play to cut the lead to 77-68. But the Bulls couldn’t rally past the Owls and fell 83-74 — despite a team-high 25 points, 6 assists, and 4 rebounds from junior gurd Geno Thorpe, who returned to the court after being sidelined with an ankle injury.

Next up, USF will head to UConn on Wednesday night for a 7pm tipoff.

By the way, happy Super Bowl Sunday y'all! Hopefully your choice of football team wins.