Bulls Fall Short in Upset Bid of West Virginia

By JC De La Torre

It was a hard fought battle, but South Florida just did not have enough to stay with the West Virginia Mountaineers in Men's Big East Basketball play, falling 62-59. USF's Dominque Jones scored 35 points to lead all scorers.

After trailing by 14 at halftime, South Florida put together a furious comeback rallying from down 10 with 9:27 left in the game thanks to a 12-3 run that cut the West Virgina lead to 1 point with 4:40 left. The Mountaineers lead would fluctuate from 1-4 points down the stretch but USF could not get the tying or leading basket and West Virginia was good at the line.

"I seriously thought about going home at halftime and taking my team, because we were pretty bad," coach Stan Heath told the St. Pete Times, "It didn't look like we had the energy level, and we weren't competing the way we needed to. But I thought we were a better team in the second half."

"I don't know what it is," Guard Jesus Verdejo said, "We just don't play hard for 40 minutes. We had guys who just didn't play hard for the first 15 or 20 minutes."

The Bulls fell to 6-11 overall, 1-4 in Big East play.