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South Florida Again Fails To Finish, Remains Winless

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By TONY JONES, Tribune correspondent

Published: November 17, 2007

DAYTONA BEACH - Finishing games and executing down the stretch.

Those are proving to be two chinks in the armor of the University of South Florida men's basketball team early this season, and those weaknesses reared up on Friday afternoon against Rhode Island in the first day of the Glenn Wilkes Classic.

In suffering a 74-67 defeat to the Rams, the Bulls squandered a nine-point second-half lead, and failed to make the necessary plays in the last five minutes to avoid a third consecutive defeat to begin the season.

And because of that, USF is left to pick up the pieces for today's noon game against Florida Atlantic. For Bulls coach Stan Heath, it doesn't matter that the season is a mere three games old. He knows his team needs to come out with a victory.

"We just need a win, no ifs, ands or buts," Heath said. "We just have to get on the winning side. There's going to be a certain urgency today to get the job done."

Rhode Island put the game away midway through the second half with a 17-6 run that erased a 48-46 deficit and staked it to a 63-54 lead they would never relinquish. Jimmy Baron, the Rams' stellar senior guard, scored seven of his team-high 17 points during the run, which was capped off by a 3-pointer by power forward Will Daniels.

Rhode Island's spurt was indicative of how South Florida's season has gone thus far. The Bulls have either led or been tied with the opposition at some point of the second half in each of their outings. But they've failed to finish each of those three games.

"We had a lot of miscues out there today," sophomore guard Chris Howard said. "We were a little tired out there, but we played a lot better than we did against Cleveland State. We just didn't play well enough in the second half to finish."

One of those reasons lied with Kentrell Gransberry, the returning All-Big East center. A senior, Gransberry scored a team-high 16 points to go with a game-high 14 rebounds. But despite his numbers and despite putting up a double-double in the first half, he didn't impact the game in the way he normally does.

Gransberry shot just 6-for-16 from the floor, along with going 4-for-10 from the free-throw line. Those numbers are indicative to how many easy points USF left on the floor. Many of Gransberry's touches came deep in the paint and a good number of his misses were easy looks from within five feet.

"My game was fool's gold today," Gransberry said. "I missed a lot of shots that I normally make. A lot of those shots were layups. I just didn't finish strong and I didn't go hard to the rim."

USF played well to start the game, pounding the ball inside and shooting a high percentage. Gransberry scored 10 of his points in the first half, and he was helped by Orane Chin, who scored eight of his 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds in the first 20 minutes. As a result, the Bulls held a 34-27 lead at halftime.

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