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TAMPA, Fla. ? J'Nathan Bullock scored 26 points, including a pair of free throws with 4.6 seconds remaining, to lead Cleveland State to a 73-70 season-opening victory over the University South Florida on Friday night.
The Vikings outscored the Bulls 14-3 in the final 4:29, overcoming a 67-59 deficit before taking the lead for good on Chris Moore's tip-in with 1:09 left. Cedric Jackson, who scored 18, finished a 12-0 spurt to put Cleveland State up 71-67.
Solomon Bozeman led USF with 19 points. His fifth 3-pointer cut Cleveland State's lead to one, but the Bulls' chances of winning faded when freshman Dominique Jones missed two free throws that could have given USF the lead with 6.7 seconds left.
Bullock was 13-for-13 from the foul line and also grabbed 10 rebounds. His last two free throws made it 73-70, and Bozeman's long 3-point attempt to send it into overtime bounced off the rim at the buzzer.
USF played its opener under new coach Stan Heath without preseason All-BIG EAST center Kentrell Gransberry, serving a one-game penalty for playing in a nonsactioned summer tournament. He's the nation's top returning rebounder and also averaged 15.6 points last season.
"We certainly had opportunities to win the game late, up by eight points, but we didn't get the job done," said Heath. "We positioned ourselves to win. And I know these guys have a little bit of experience going through that in the past but it's just not acceptable to me."
Jesus Verdejo and Bozeman, who came off the bench to make 5 of 7 3-point shots, took up the slack for USF. Verdejo finished with 17 points, and Bozeman's first 3-pointer of the night started a 23-11 run the Bulls used to overcome an early nine-point deficit.
"You never know how the game plays out (if Gransberry plays)," said Heath. "But the difference in points and rebounds would be significantly different in the paint. Does that change the outcome? Probably a good possibility, but you can't play what-ifs."
"We have to play hard for forty minutes," said Verdejo. "The most important thing is play hard the first five minutes of the first half and the first five minutes of the second half. Obviously we didn't do that. They started off 11-2, and I think that didn't help us at all at the end of the game, but we came back. They got more rebounds than us on the offensive board, we didn't get a lot of rebounds and besides that I think they just outplayed us, they played harder than us. A loss is a loss, I don't care if Kentrell wasn't in the game, because we don't know what would have happened if he was in the game, that's no excuse, we lost, that's the only way I look at it. As a team we lost. We'll move forward and get better tomorrow in practice. We'll see Buffalo on Tuesday."
The Bulls return to action on Tuesday, Nov. 13, when they travel to New York to take on Mid-American Conference foe Buffalo at 7 p.m.
