Tulsa Ends Regular Season with Loss at South Florida

Wednesday, March 1

Tampa, FL

6:00 PM

Tulsa

5-24,1-17AAC

South Florida

14-16,7-10AAC

Tulsa

South Fla.

Tulsa Ends Regular Season with Loss at South Florida

3/1/2023 8:57:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Gamebook (PDF) | Season Stats (PDF)

Tampa, Fla. –– The Golden Hurricane men's basketball team closed out the 2022-23 regular season slate with a 72-56 loss to South Florida in front of 3,358 fans at the Yuengling Center on Wednesday evening.

Tulsa will head into the American Athletic Conference Championship with a 5-24 record, 1-17 in The American, its worst finish as members of the conference. South Florida improves to 14-16, 6-10 in The American with a game at Wichita State still to go.

Tim Dalger led Tulsa with 16 points and pulled down nine rebounds with an assist, block and steal to his credit. Brandon Betson connected on four triples as part of his 13 points, and Sterling Gaston-Chapman scored a career-high 11 points and had four rebounds. Bryant Selebangue was the lead rebounder for the Hurricane, grabbing 10 off the glass.

On the other side of the court, Keyshawn Bryant poured in 30 points on 11-of-15 shooting (73.3 percent) and four 3-pointers. He also had six rebounds and a pair of blocks.

South Florida outshot Tulsa 42 to 33 percent on the night, but Tulsa held a 36 to 23 percent advantage on 3-pointers, hitting nine to the Bulls' seven. Points in the paint and second chance points is where South Florida was able to take advantage, outscoring Tulsa 36-14 and 21-6, respectively. The discrepancy on the glass was in favor of South Florida as TU was outrebounded 45-35 and 14-8 on the offensive boards.

In the second half, South Florida went up 41-20 with 17:33 to play, its largest lead of the night, and looked poised to run away with the game. Instead, Tulsa battled back, going on a 19-3 run over the next six and a half minutes to cut the deficit to 44-39 at the 11:05 mark. Sterling Gaston-Chapman, Betson and Dalger all hit 3-pointers in the run, paced by Betson's three within a minute.

The Hurricane would get the lead back down to five a couple of times, the last with at 50-45 after Dalger knocked down his third 3-pointer of the game. However, Tulsa missed its next five field goals, going more than six minutes without a successful shot from the floor, as South Florida rattled off 15 straight points to take a commanding 65-45 lead before a pair of free throws from Gaston-Chapman with just over two minutes left. Tulsa would outscore South Florida 9-7 in the final minutes to end the game.

Tulsa opened the matchup with the first two buckets, a layup from Gaston-Chapman and dunk from Selebangue. But the Hurricane wouldn't score again for the next eight minutes when Betson split a pair of free throws to make the score 13-5 with 9:15 left in the half.

A 3-pointer pushed South Florida's lead to double digits for the first time, 16-5. Dalger responded with a three of his own to bring it back to eight. The lead would bounce back and forth between single and double digits for the remainder of the half before the Bulls scored the final four points to take its largest lead of the half, 35-20, into the locker room.

Dalger and Selebangue led Tulsa in the opening half with six points each. Selebangue was the lone Hurricane to make more than one shot from the field as Tulsa shot 26 percent and 10 percent from three, making just one attempt.

With the weekend bye, Tulsa has eight days until the start of the conference tournament. The Golden Hurricane await this weekend's results to determine its opponent. However, TU has clinched the 11th seed and will face the No. 6 team in the final game of the opening round. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. and will air on ESPNU.