FORT WORTH, Texas (WFLA) – The University of South Florida women’s basketball team will compete in its eighth American Athletic Conference semifinal game in eight seasons on Wednesday.
They advanced to that game with a win over Wichita State on Tuesday.
“It was not pretty. We just did enough to finish,” said the Bulls head coach, Jose Fernandez.
He appeared to be in a sour mood in his postgame press conference and he had his reasons. His team only hit 15 of 61 shots, which is less than 25%, and they only connected on five of 26 shots from behind the arc. The Bulls also turned the ball over 16 times.
“We wanted to play fast,” said Fernandez, “and I thought we did that in the first half but playing fast does not mean taking fast, bad shots, and a lot of them were not good shots. They were early in the shot clock.”
Sydni Harvey scored the most points for the Bulls with 14 of them. The only other Bull to score double-digit points was Elena Tsineke. She finished the game with 12 points.
The next opponent for the University of South Florida is Tulane University.
Fernandez, after running through a list of dangerous players on that team, shared how he thinks the Bulls can beat them.
“We got to guard dribble penetration,” he said. “We got to keep them in front of us, you know, make sure we guard the arc and be solid on where we want the ball to go and do a good job taking care of it.”
The top-seeded Bulls have already beaten the Tulane Green Wave twice during the regular season. However, that fact could add fuel to the fire for the underdog.
“I am sure this is a really important game for them,” said Fernandez. “This is the third time we play them this year and their kids, I am sure, are going to be really excited to play us because we have had so much success against them but every game is different and their coach is going to get them ready to play and, if we shoot 24% or 25% against those guys, it is not going to be a pretty basketball game.”
That game is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. inside Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.
