On January 23rd, South Florida stood at 1-5 in the Big East coming off a loss at Cincinnati. In conference, they had their lone win over lowly Rutgers, a close loss at home to Notre Dame and 4 big blowouts. Fast forward to today and they've won 4 straight including wins over Pittsburgh and at Georgetown.
That begs the question, are they for real? Well, we'll know more in the next week as they head out to Notre Dame and Marquette in games that they probably need to split. They still have a trip to Villanova...but the rest of the schedule isn't that daunting. Cincinnati and UConn have to go to Tampa and the other road game is DePaul. What do the numbers tell us?
They tell us that Dominique James is a one-man wrecking crew averging 22.4 per game on 49% shooting, not too shabby for a guard. He also adds 6 boards per game and dishes 4 assists per game. As for the rest of the club...
Mediocore. To this point, they do nothing great and some things real bad. Their highest ranking is 89th in 3pt FG% defense and 90th in turnovers per game. Red flags include a negative turnover/assist rate at -1.2 per game, a middling + 1.2 rebound margin and an inability to make 3 pointers, shooting a ghastly 29% from beyond the arc. Let 'em chuck it from the cheap seats...
The RPI is 54 and they have a SOS of 35. They could get a berth or fall on their faces but even with their hot streak (And I think Pitt is probably vastly overrated), this isn't a team that looks to be more than a one and done. But for them, that'll be a great season.
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