College basketball

Bulls go ice cold in loss to Islanders

By STEVE KOEHLER
Published December 3, 2005

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Maybe it was the temperature that hovered in the teens that bothered them.

But few things were as cold as the South Florida Bulls on Friday night in their 59-47 loss to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the opening round of the Price Cutter Classic at Missouri State University.

Consider these icy facts:

--The Bulls shot a paltry 25 percent from the field in the second half that included a 13-minute stretch with just two field goals.

--The Bulls committed 14 second-half turnovers.

--They failed to score the first seven times they had the ball in the second half.

"We got off to a slow start," said coach Robert McCullum. "Much of it was turnovers. It's hard to understand and accept since the vast majority of the turnovers were unforced."

In a slow starting, turnover-ridden game (50 between the two teams), the Islanders (4-1) struggled in the first half before pulling away from the Bulls (2-2).

"The defensive effort was good early," Arrow said. "We played a physical game and we executed well at the end, good enough to win."

The only one who looked comfortable on the court for either team was USF's Solomon Jones, who scored a career-high 22 points and grabbed 12 rebounds. It was his third double-double of the season.

Jones ran into foul trouble, picking up his fourth foul with 9:18 left. He scored just one field goal in the second half as the entire team lost its shooting eye.

"When Jones got into foul trouble it changed the complexity of the game," McCullum said.

But the coach added that it was the turnovers that hurt the Bulls' comeback chances the most.

"We had no offensive game in the second half," McCullum said. "We went 0 for 7. The game was lost at that point."

The Bulls looked like they might hang with Corpus Christi in the first half especially in the last five minutes when Jones took over and had what they thought was a 27-24 halftime lead.

But a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Corpus Christi's Josh Washington knotted it at 27.

The Bulls didn't let the Islanders run away even after Corpus Christi took a 12-6 lead.

The cold shooting hit the Islanders who went six minutes without scoring to let USF back into the game.

"The game was still within striking distance and I thought we played real well in the last five minutes," McCullum said.

James Holmes had 13 points for USF, who will play at 6:35 tonight against the loser of the Georgia Southern-Missouri State late game.

[Last modified December 3, 2005, 01:22:20]