USF Bulls Radio

The University of South Florida Bulls were unable to stop Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey from achieving his 300th career victory, forfeiting to the Fighting Irish their second opportunity for a conference win. The Bulls are now 0-2 in the Big East conference after the 74-73 loss at home.

Notre Dame came back strong from a loss last Saturday against the University of Connecticut, despite an outstanding performance by forward Luke Harangody that earned him an appearance on the Big East weekly honor roll. Harangody scored 31 points and had 9 rebounds.

“Every year he [Harangody] has added to his game,” Coach Stan Heath said. “Every time we don’t play him I’m a big fan of his.”

The Bulls lost at Louisville on December 30 largely due to some foul trouble they hit in the second half, which cost them Dominique Jones and Chris Howard. However, freshman forward Toarlyn Fitzpatrick had 11 points and 11 rebounds, his first career double-double.

Fitzpatrick had another great game against Notre Dame as he scored 13 points and had 6 rebounds. However, Harangody proved to be too much for the freshman who was unable to stop him defensively. Harangody scored 36 points.

“Fitzpatrick played him hard but Harangody made some tough plays. We had a freshman guarding him,” Jones said.

Both teams played well and were tied 33-33 at halftime but with the Bulls rotation short of key players like Gus Gilchrist and Justin Leemow, who is no longer on the team, exhaustion kicked in and Notre Dame took advantage.

The Bulls were down by 13 points with 12 minutes left in the second half, when they really turned it on and began to close the gap. With 25 seconds left Mike Mercer, who had a career-high 10 rebounds, tied the game 73-73, but Mercer fouled Harangody in the next possession. Harangody made a free-throw shot to put Notre Dame up by one point with two seconds left.

The Bulls then called a time-out, and with only two seconds to move down court and make a shot, Chris Howard hurled the ball in but was unable to find a teammate in time. Heath said they completed that same play several times during practice, but were unable to translate that onto the court when it mattered most.

“They dug down deep. They had to turn it up a notch but in the end we were working on fumes and didn’t have the gas to finish the game.” Heath said.

Sophomore guard Anthony Crater will be eligible to play next week, which will give the USF starters more time to rest. Heath mentioned that he would like to have Jones play only 35 minutes as opposed to the entire game and this should be possible once Crater begins to get comfortable.

“Those last 16 seconds were a tough pill to swallow,” Heath said. “I really thought when we tied it up we’d be able to get that big stop. I think more of it was just fatigue.”

They may have lost but the Bulls out shot Notre Dame 53 percent to 41 percent and only missed 10 shots in the second half. Both teams fought hard, as was apparent by the game’s 13 lead changes.

Although the Bulls are off to a slow start in the Big East they were able to close in on a 13-point stretch in the second half, but fell just shy of taking home their first conference win of the season. With Crater filling in the bare spots on their rotation, Heath expects the Bulls to be well rested and able to finish strong.

“We won’t have as many lows. Our team will get better and our guys will be fresher,” Coach Heath said.

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