We Meet Again: A USF Preview and Retrospective
Basketball-Reference’s list of UAB’s most-played opponents conjures vivid images of recent battles: the Blazers’ years-long rivalry with Rick Stansbury’s Western Kentucky, decades of hard-fought games against Southern Miss, and highly memorable blood feuds with Memphis. But one name, the name at the very top of the list, doesn’t serve as a particularly effective memento.
South Florida?
For many younger fans, myself included, the letters “USF” don’t induce any emotions at all. I’ve been going to games since about 2006, and my first strong UAB memories began in 2008. I remember well the late 2000s epics against Memphis, Houston, Tulane, Tulsa, Southern Miss, UTEP, and more, but when I think about South Florida, I draw blanks. That’s for good reason – the Bulls left Conference USA in 2005. UAB has only played them seven times since.
But for those around for earlier decades of Blazer basketball, USF was as ubiquitous an opponent as, say, 2010s Marshall. UAB and South Florida were both in the Sun Belt from 1978 to 1991 and both in C-USA from 1995 onward; games continued to be played during their brief affiliation difference. USF was a constant competitor during the Sun Belt era in particular – the two teams met 21 times in the 80s alone. At the time, the SBC featured just eight schools, leading to squads meeting twice, sometimes thrice a season.
The rivalry was somewhat competitive in its early days. UAB hasn’t trailed in the series since 1979, but USF made serious efforts to change that in the mid-80s. The Bulls also enjoyed sporadic patches of success throughout the 90s. Once the millennium turned, the Blazers snuffed out these brief periods of USF hope. There was a stretch between 2003 and 2007 where the Blazers beat the Bulls eight consecutive times, only three of those games staying within single digits. At the time of this writing, UAB has won 11 of their last 13 games against USF. This weekend’s game will be the programs’ 61st all-time meeting – the Blazers have emerged victorious in 39.
The Bulls come to Birmingham on Sunday for the first time since 2014. It will mark the official reunion of the two old rivals, who haven’t met as conference foes in nearly 15 years. USF is currently 8-4 and 1-0 in AAC play, led by a first-year coach and a largely new cast of players. But before we preview the upcoming matchup, let’s look back at the recent highlights of this long-running series.
February 23rd, 2002 – UAB wins, 83-78 (2OT) – Birmingham, Alabama
The only game in UAB/USF history to ever reach multiple overtimes, the Blazers’ thrilling home victory over the Bulls snapped a rare streak of USF dominance. At the time of tipoff on February 23rd, 2002, South Florida had beaten UAB three consecutive times and five out of the last six. Today’s Blazer triumph would violently turn the tide of the series; USF wouldn’t record another regular season win over UAB until 2007.
The two teams were evenly matched per KenPom, but examining the context reveals the significant morale differences between the Blazers and the Bulls. UAB was a plateauing program doomed to another disappointing season whose chances at winning C-USA had slipped away long ago. South Florida was an upward-trending conference foe with a winning record and a recent history of thrashing the Blazers. This game was a massive test and a must-win for the Green and Gold.
The Blazers led most of the night, boasting a 13-point advantage with just five minutes left in the second half. USF flustered the Green and Gold with a full-court press and clutch shooting, shocking the crowd with three late triples. The Bulls went on a 19-6 run after the final media timeout, miraculously sending the game into overtime after UAB’s Eric Bush couldn’t convert a last-second heave.
The story stayed the same in the first extra period: South Florida couldn’t miss. USF jumped out to a four-point lead with just under 90 seconds remaining, but UAB’s PJ Arnold nailed a jumper and two clutch free throws to keep the Blazers breathing. The Bulls had gone cold, and UAB suddenly had a chance to win it – but an Arnold buzzer-beater rattled out as the horn sounded. Second OT.
The second overtime was less heart-pounding; it soon became clear the Blazers were taking control. UAB’s Myron Ransom attacked the basket like his life depended on it, pouring in a blitz of eight points after scoring just four the rest of the game. USF’s offensive prowess had abandoned them; the Bulls put up a paltry four points in the final period.
Bush played an unthinkable 50 minutes, never leaving the floor, while Will Campbell and Eric Batchelor fought admirably in the frontcourt, combining for 29 points and 14 rebounds. But it was the reserves that won the Blazers the game. Starters Cedric Davis and Mo Finley struggled mightily, scoring just eight points between them in 68 total minutes. Ransom and Arnold came off the bench late, each heroically carrying UAB through a different overtime.
For those curious, the game’s box score is available here.
Unfortunately, USF got the last laugh. Two weeks later, the Bulls would squeak past the Blazers in the first round of the Conference USA tournament, ending UAB’s season and Murry Bartow’s tenure in Birmingham. Ironically, Murry would serve as an interim head coach at USF a decade later.
January 20th, 2004 – UAB wins, 86-47 – Birmingham, Alabama
The largest blowout the series has ever witnessed, the January 2004 chapter of this rivalry was an exercise in dominance. Mike Anderson was fielding perhaps the best Blazer team of this century: 10-5 at the time, they’d go on to finish 46th in KenPom (still a program record) and beat top-ranked Kentucky in the round of 32. South Florida, under first-year head coach Robert McCullum, was in the midst of a dreadful season that would culminate in a 1-15 conference record.
The box score is comical. UAB:
Recorded 26 assists
Turned it over just six times
Outscored USF in bench points 41-4
Went on three different 10-0 runs
At one point, the Blazers led 26-6. Mo Finley scored 17, Demario Eddins scored 13, and Donell Taylor scored 11 off the bench. This isn’t just the biggest thrashing in UAB-USF history: it still stands as the Bulls’ largest defeat in the last 20 years. Since January 20th, 2004, USF hasn’t lost a game by a margin even approaching 39.
November 20th, 2014 – USF wins, 73-71 (OT) – Birmingham, Alabama
South Florida’s most recent victory in the series, this game was a canary in the coal mine for Jerod Haase’s Blazers. The Green and Gold were an unknown quantity coming into the 2014 campaign, having lost most of their contributors from the year prior. A season-opening loss to a bad ULM squad wasn’t promising, but UAB’s Bartow heartbreaker against the Bulls, KenPom’s 274th-ranked team, sent fans into a full-blown state of panic and foreshadowed forthcoming struggles. The Blazers would go on to drop seven of their next ten games.
(Of course, they’d turn it around during conference play, as we all know.)
The game itself was a thriller. Look at this insane win probability chart:
Playing in his third career game, a freshman Chris Cokley had the chance to tie it at the end of overtime but missed a critical free throw. With seven seconds on the game clock, UAB got the ball back with a chance to win it but didn’t even get a shot off. USF smothered the Blazers and secured their only win in Bartow since 2001.
November 21st, 2022 – UAB wins, 80-65 – Daytona Beach, Florida
The most recent meeting between UAB and USF was similar to 2004’s blowout: a contrast between extremes, two programs with similar absolute values but vastly different trajectories. Taking place just last season, the matchup featured a Blazer squad at the height of the Jelly Walker era, perhaps one of the 40 best teams in the country. Conversely, USF entered the game sub-200 in KenPom, one of their most embarrassing analytical rankings of the century. The game was the opener of the Sunshine Slam, an MTE that UAB would go on to win.
The Blazers seized the lead from the get-go and never looked back, scoring an impressive 1.18 points per possession. Four UAB players reached double-digits, led by 15 from Walker on 40% three-point shooting. Center Javian Davis was dominant, making eight of his nine free throws and pulling down eight rebounds. USF’s 48.6 two-point percentage wasn’t nearly enough to keep up with the Blazer onslaught. Guard Tyler Harris was the only Bull to consistently find the bottom of the net, scoring 22 and making five threes on ten attempts.
This year’s USF squad is filled with new faces on both ends of the bench, encapsulating the current state of college basketball. Longtime coach Brian Gregory was fired in March of 2023 after leading the Bulls to their fourth consecutive losing season. Into the void stepped Amir Abdur-Rahim, a rising coaching star notable for transforming a once-moribund Kennesaw State program into a mid-major powerhouse.
The Bulls looked lethargic out of the gate, suffering early losses to bad Central Michigan and Maine teams, but Abdur-Rahim now seems to have USF on the right track. They enter Bartow on a six-game winning streak highlighted by victories over Florida State and Loyola Chicago. The Bulls won the sole AAC game they’ve played, smothering Temple last Thursday.
Seven of USF’s top eight contributors are players on their second or third program. Many of these transfers joined the team this offseason, most of them former Kennesaw State Owls following their coach. Almost none of the Bulls’ contributors are freshmen: guard Jayden Reid is quite literally the only one on the roster. This is an old, veteran bunch with plenty of D1 experience (67th-most in the country, per KenPom) but little experience playing with one another, perhaps explaining the rough start.
Senior guard Chris Youngblood leads the Bulls in minutes. His name might be familiar to dedicated mid-major basketball fans: a four-star prospect out of high school, Youngblood spurned offers from larger programs to join a Kennesaw State squad coming off a 1-28 season. Shockingly eidetic UAB fans might somehow remember his six-point performance against the Blazers in December of his freshman year.
After two years of steady improvement, Youngblood burst onto the scene in 2023 and carried KSU to an ASUN title and a March Madness bid. After a tournament loss to Xavier, the guard made like his coach and moved to Tampa. Youngblood started this season sluggishly but has since found his shooting stroke and is now USF’s leading scorer.
An interesting archetype of a player, Youngblood thrives on midrange jumpers and corner threes: his shooting percentage on both shot types ranks above the 75th percentile nationally. He gets to the basket with great frequency but has struggled to finish, making just 50% of his shots around the rim. Youngblood counteracts that by drawing a whopping 2.5 fouls per 40 minutes – he’s one of the AAC’s most prolific free-throw shooters.
USF’s other significant contributors include:
Selton Miguel, a guard who’s started three games but ranks second on the team in minutes played. Miguel is USF’s only true deep threat – he’s made 28 out of his 60 threes, good for a blistering 46.7% clip. He hasn’t been particularly effective from anywhere else, the interior in particular: Miguel has made just 43.5% of his dunks and layups, one of the lowest rates in the nation.
Kobe Knox, a guard who plays 71% percent of USF’s minutes despite struggling mightily offensively. Knox’s eFG% is just 39.8, ranking in the 18th percentile nationally. Almost 30% of his field goal attempts come on corner threes, but Knox has made just 20.7% of them.
Kasean Pryor, a 6’10” forward who is a tertiary offensive option at best. However, Pryor has the most impressive defensive stats on the team: his block rate is 4.1%, and his steal rate is 3.2%. Both numbers rank top-280 in the country. Pryor also grabs an extraordinary 25.8% of possible defensive rebounds, one of the nation’s elite percentages.
Jayden Reid, the lone freshman to crack the Bulls’ rotation. He’s a guard who doesn’t take many shots but makes the ones he does – Reid’s eFG% and TS% are both top 200 in America. He’s made 48% of his threes (on just 25 attempts). Reid is also the Bulls’ premier distributor, leading the team in assists by far.
USF’s offense features few deadly shooters. Their team eFG% is 49.4, 206th in America. They compensate for this by trying to get to the charity stripe as much as possible: a whopping 22.3% of their points come off free throws. The Bulls also rarely waste possessions, minimizing giveaways and maximizing ball movement. USF turns it over just 15.6% of the time, a bottom-70 rate in the nation, and records assists on 57.6% percent of their made baskets, a top-55 rate in the nation.
The Bulls’ offense isn’t formidable, but they have an identity. An opponent prone to defensive lapses – cough – could certainly get gashed if they play with fire.
Per KenPom, the Bulls have been better on defense than on offense for 14 of the previous 15 seasons. This year is no different. Facing one of the American’s more solid defensive units, scoring will be UAB’s most significant challenge on Sunday. USF’s roster features multiple pests, such as guard Brandon Stroud and the aforementioned Pryor and Reid.
USF forces turnovers on 20.6% of opposing possessions, a clip that ranks in the top 50 nationally. The Bulls’ steal rate is 10.1%, which is good but not elite. Most of their defensive output comes on non-steal turnovers – think bad passes, charges, dribbles off feet, and travels. USF is the 14th-best in America at generating those types of mistakes.
There is some element of variance in this statistic. Most of these non-steal turnovers are what you might be tempted to call “unforced” – generated by offensive ineptitude instead of defensive prowess. But the defense actually plays a significant role in creating these TOs, per Ken Pomeroy’s research. USF certainly has some level of ability to exploit sloppy opposing play and turn it into tangible gains. The Blazers could find themselves in deep trouble if they exhibit the same lackadaisy they did against UTSA.
KenPom sees the game as a complete tossup, giving UAB a 56% chance to win with a predicted final score of 75-74. I’ve seen betting lines range from UAB -1.5 to USF -1.5. It’s going to be a close one.