Unhappy Bulls seek to rebound at Villanova

Posted Feb 23, 2010 by Scott Carter

Updated Feb 23, 2010 at 09:59 PM

Stan Heath is relatively mild-mannered compared to some of his fellow Big East coaches, but there are losses, and then there are blood-boiling defeats that make you want to go home and kick the family dog.

Heath doesn’t want to get the folks at PETA on his case, so he simply kicked the Bulls out of the locker room as soon as they showered and dressed following Saturday’s home loss to St. John’s.

“I didn’t want to see them,’’ he said. “We needed to get away from each other.’’

When the Bulls reconvened for practice Monday afternoon, Heath held a short team meeting to discuss what’s ahead, starting with Wednesday night’s game at No. 7-ranked Villanova. If the Bulls have any shot of earning an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, they need to win their final four regular-season games.

To do that, they must avoid any more lethargic performances such as Saturday’s 74-58 loss to the Red Storm that prevented the Bulls from climbing back to .500 in the Big East.

“We just laid an egg and we’re not very happy,’’ Heath said.

USF’s defense was lackadaisical at times against St. John’s – the Red Storm shot a season-high 58.7 percent—shots weren’t falling, passes weren’t crisp, and Heath said there was too much “individualistic’’ play going on for the Bulls to win.

“That’s not a winning formula for us,’’ senior guard Mike Mercer said.

In the aftermath of the deflating loss, USF is attempting to rediscover some of the magic it had during a school-record four-game Big East winning streak earlier this month, one that included victories over Pittsburgh and Georgetown, two of the top teams in the conference.

A good place to start would be a victory at Villanova, a program the Bulls have never beaten since joining the Big East five seasons ago. While Saturday’s loss was costly to USF’s bid to qualify for March Madness for the first time in 18 years, all is not lost.

If the Bulls can win their final four games: at Villanova, at home against Providence, at DePaul, and at home against Connecticut, they would finish 10-8 in the Big East, considered by most analysts to be good enough for an automatic bid since the Big East is considered the toughest conference in the nation this season.

“There’s still a logjam of teams where we are,’’ Heath said.

Still, it won’t be easy considering the Bulls are trying to make a late-season adjustment by adding forward Augustus Gilchrist back into the lineup after a two-month layoff. To make matters worse, junior guard Dominique Jones has cooled off of late thanks to extra attention from opposing teams. Jones is shooting just 32.3 percent over the past four games, three of those losses.

While Jones and Gilchrist are USF’s two most talented offensive players, role players such as center Jarrid Famous and Mercer must elevate their game as well.

“I plan to make a conscious effort to come out with my highest defensive intensity of the season,’’ Mercer said of tonight’s game. “We’ve all got to bring it.’’

That’s the kind of talk Heath likes to hear. At Monday’s team meeting, USF’s third-year coach urged the Bulls to focus on “what we need to do to get ourselves back on track.’’

“This is a pivotal game,’’ he said. “We’ve got to bring a much better defensive effort, a much better offensive performance, and really get back to where we were a few weeks ago.

“That has to be our focus.’’