TAMPA (AP) - The University of South Florida rolled into Syracuse in early January with 10 victories in a span of 11 games. The Bulls lost that afternoon and entered Wednesday night's rematch hoping to salvage the opposite result.

Mission accomplished.

Dominique Jones scored 29 points and Kentrell Gransberry had 23, leading the Bulls to an 89-78 victory against the Orange. Jesus Verdejo contributed 19 points and Solomon Bozeman added 10 for South Florida (11-14, 2-10 Big East), which had dropped 10 consecutive games since a 68-45 romp against Rutgers on Jan. 2.

Jones hit 10 free throws in a row down the stretch to help South Florida withstand a rally by Syracuse (16-9, 6-6) that trimmed a 19-point lead to three on a shot from the left corner by Kristof Ongenaet with 1:16 to play.

"They just put the game in my hands and said, 'Hey, go up there and make free throws and we win,' and that's easy," Jones said. "All the practice paid off."

South Florida was coming off a loss at DePaul in which it blew a 16-point lead for the second time in three games.

"What came into my head was not this time," Gransberry said. "We kind of learned from our losses and mistakes. We just had to finish this one out, and that's what we did."

"It was almost a small miracle to get it back to three," said Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, who joined Ralph Miller in 19th place on the all-time Division I list at 1,039 games.

Donte Green scored 17 points and Jonny Flynn, who has played every minute of the past six games, had 16 for Syracuse. Teammates Paul Harris added 14 points and Scoop Jardine finished with 10.

The Orange led by one point seven minutes into the game, when the Bulls began a 20-1 run for a 32-14 lead. Syracuse went nearly 10 minutes during that stretch without a field goal.

Jones had 17 points at the break with South Florida ahead 38-24.

"For the first time in a long time, we played for 40 minutes a strong game," first-year Bulls coach Stan Heath said.

Boeheim seemingly couldn't have been more disappointed in his team.

"When you're making some bad turnovers, missing free throws, missing layups, it's not a good scenario," said Boeheim, who didn't sense South Florida has become a better team since its 12-point loss at Syracuse on Jan. 5.

"I don't see that," he said. "I see us playing about 190 percent worse right now than we were then."