Just a quick look about at what happened today between noon and 2 pm down in Oakland. The AP article focuses on how we were simply able to wear them away which is to be expected from us playing a team fighting off a boatload of injuries. The game was close when their starters weren’t in major need of some oxygen but as the game moved along the USF players just had a tough time keeping up.

South Florida coach Robert McCullum made gave his own comments on the Panther’s nine man deep rotation:

”Their depth makes them one of the best teams in the country. Maybe they’re not the prettiest – they won’t get a lot of style points – but they’re one of the best teams.

”Depth is one of the strengths they have,” McCullum said. ”They could take a run well into March – or April.”

All of this was easily seen for the first 8 1/2 minutes of the second half; we held them to four points in that span while opening a 42-26 lead.

I love how he mentions how this helps in March. The Big East tournament can be brutal on most of the teams because of needing to win 3 games in 3 days (or maybe even the “Orangemen Sweep” of 4 games in 4 days) but Pitt is a team built to win all those games in such a short span.

You’ll see a more on this game over the next day before we prepare for DePaul.