It’s been a historic season for the South Florida Bulls men’s basketball team, and there’s still more to come. Fresh off winning the American Conference regular season and tournament titles, the Bulls were selected for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2012. USF earned an 11 seed and will face sixth-seeded Louisville in Buffalo, New York, this Thursday, March 19. The game tips off at 1:30 pm and will be broadcast on TNT.
If you’ve been ignoring USF men’s basketball this season, congrats: you’ve accidentally been practicing mindfulness. Unfortunately, you’ve also missed the Bulls turning the Yuengling Center into a cardio laboratory where opposing teams come to learn what “gas” feels like when it’s gone.
Under first-year head coach Bryan Hodgson, USF ripped through the 2025–26 regular season with a 25–8 overall record and a 15–3 mark in the American Athletic Conference, sitting alone in first place. They’re not doing it with slow, “let’s all have a think” basketball, either. They’re scoring 87.7 points per game, which is the kind of number that makes traditionalists clutch their pearls.
USF’s whole identity is pace, and it’s not subtle. The staff talks about “Race-27,” basically sprinting the ball into the frontcourt as soon as the shot clock resets, like the team is allergic to walking. The Bulls play at one of the fastest tempos in the country, and they use that volume to squeeze opponents until something cracks: a rushed shot, a tired closeout, a lazy rebound. It’s basketball as a stress test, and the Bulls are the ones holding the clipboard.
Big humans running very fast is somehow working
The roster fits the bit. Big man Izaiyah Nelson has been a walking problem inside, stacking points and rebounds with the calm efficiency of someone assembling IKEA furniture while everyone else panics. CJ Brown keeps the engine humming, and the Bulls have multiple perimeter threats who are perfectly happy to let it fly early in the clock. They’ve already set program marks for 100-point games and 90-point games this season, which is a polite way of saying the scoreboard operator has been through a lot.
And this isn’t just empty-calories stat padding. On Feb. 19, USF handled the Memphis Tigers 87–66 in Tampa, turning the matchup into a one-sided demonstration of what happens when you try to jog with a team that only sprints. That win didn’t just pad the standings, it showed why USF is miserable to prep for. If the threes aren’t falling, they get to the stripe. If shots don’t drop, they rebound. If the first half goes sideways, they’ve got enough possessions to flip the script hella quick.
It isn’t a fluke, it’s a full-blown problem
What makes this run extra fun is that it doesn’t feel fluky. USF built a roster to play this way, recruited to it, practiced it into muscle memory, and now they’re cashing the checks. With the regular season’s final stretch ahead, the Bulls are in position to chase hardware, stack a few statement wins, and make the tournament feel less like a dream and more like a calendar event.
So here’s the pitch for casual fans. You don’t have to memorize every rotation or start yelling “NET!” in all caps on social media. Just show up. USF is playing a brand of basketball that’s loud, fast, and ridiculous in the best way, and they’re doing it while sitting atop the conference. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to hop on the bandwagon, this is it. Bring earplugs for the dunks, bring water for yourself, and bring the willingness to watch another team get run into the ground.
