Postmortem report From Rutgers

Posted Feb 18, 2006 by Brett McMurphy

Updated Feb 18, 2006 at 11:19 PM

Who would have thought the University of South Florida’s football and basketball teams would finish their inaugural Big East seasons with the same number of wins. Well, that’s what’s going to happen unless the Bulls pull off an upset at Providence or Rutgers, both fighting to qualify for the Big East Tournament, or stun nationally ranked Georgetown or Connecticut. If USF loses out, the Bulls will finish with a school record worst 6-23 record and an 18-game losing streak. Oh, the Humanity!

FREE FRANE! Now that the Bulls have been officially eliminated from the Big East Tournament, it will be interesting to see if freshman center Frane Markusovic gets any playing time in the final four games. He has played a total of three minutes in two games this season, but since he played one minute at Syracuse Jan. 8 he can not be redshirted. Throw him out there, let him get some game experience. It might pay off down the road. What do the Bulls have to lose? It can’t get any worse - can it?

BIG BIRD SIGHTING: Former USF center Will McDonald attended Saturday’s game. He was with his father, Will Sr., who has moved to Florida after his New Orleans home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. McDonald is playing overseas in Madrid, Spain, but had a couple of days off so he flew to Tampa to visit his father and came to the USF-Rutgers contest. Also attending Saturday’s contest was former USF assistant Brian Yankelevitz.

TRIVIA: Name the only person who played for both USF and Rutgers?

LOVING C-DOA: Perhaps there is no team happier that the Big East took five teams from Conference USA more than Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights are 4-1 against former C-DOA teams - Cincinnati, DePaul, Louisville, Syracuse and USF - with another game remaining against USF Feb. 26.

ODDS AND ENDS: Rutgers’ win at USF Saturday was only the Scarlet Knights’ fourth in their past 38 Big East road games. ... USF play-by-play announcer T.J. Rives’ take: “Despite playing against the league’s leading scorer it’s very disappointing that a game that was very winnable, goes by the wayside at home because they didn’t play well enough to win.” ... Trivia answer: Sam Sanders played at Rutgers in 1997-99 before transferring to USF, where he played from 1999-2001. ... In his last two games, Melvin Buckley is 3-for-18 (16 percent). In his last seven games, James Holmes is 32-for-109 (29 percent). ... Rutgers coach Gary Waters is 2-0 against USF’s Robert McCullum. Besides Saturday, Waters’ Kent State team defeated McCullum’s Western Michigan club in 2001.