Marquette ends USF's win streak at three

A chance for the South Florida men's basketball team to move into rarefied air in the Big East never materialized.

The Bulls were undone by foul trouble, scoring woes and sloppy play as their three-game winning streak ended with Tuesday night's 67-47 loss at No. 17 Marquette.

"We gave ourselves no chance," USF coach Stan Heath said.

Instead of pulling into a tie for second place with No. 9 Georgetown, USF (12-9, 5-3) fell into a tie for sixth with Cincinnati after committing 22 turnovers and forcing only five by Marquette. Top scorers Augustus Gilchrist and Jawanza Poland combined for seven points.

"We just didn't play very well at all tonight," Heath said. "I don't think it was an X-and-O thing, we played a lot different than we had been playing."

The Bulls have relied on a defense allowing a Big East-low 57.7 points per game rather than an offense producing a conference-low 61.9. USF again showed defensive fortitude, limiting Marquette without a basket for close to a seven-minute first-half span.

The Golden Eagles (17-4, 6-2) still led throughout that drought and opened a 24-15 lead when they finally found the range again on back-to-back 3-pointers by Darius Johnson-Odom and Jae Crowder. The Bulls were shooting only 31.6 percent at that point, and finished at 35.6.

USF's problems began when 6-foot-8, 290 pound Davante Gardner scored Marquette's first six points and helped get Gilchrist and Ron Anderson Jr. into foul trouble.

"They went right at Gilchrist," Heath said. "It was an effective game plan for them."

That forced Heath into using some zone defense to protect his players, and USF was in striking distance when Hugh Robertson's 3-pointer cut the deficit to 26-21 with 1:40 left before the break.

But the half ended in disastrous fashion.

Marquette sandwiched Jamil Wilson's corner 3-pointer and Todd Mayo's two free throws around an airball by USF's Victor Rudd Jr. before one final dismal sequence.

Poland got on the end of an alley-oop but failed to put home the dunk. Marquette raced the ball upcourt and Johnson-Odom missed a layup, but Wilson didn't miss his emphatic put-back slam right before the buzzer as the Golden Eagles raced off the court with a 33-21 lead.

"We had a nice lob play," Heath said. "Poland probably puts the ball in the basket nine out of 10 times."

A comeback never materialized as Marquette led by as many as 22 points in its fifth straight victory.

Toarlyn Fitzpatrick led USF with 19 points and 10 rebounds.

The Bulls didn't get many breaks along with their poor play. The Golden Eagles weren't whistled for a foul in the first 12 minutes, with USF committing five in that span.