NOTRE DAME, Ind. - Riding a four-game win streak, the University of South Florida men's basketball found out that poor free throw shooting can and will eventually catch up to you.

The Bulls hit just 10-of-20 from the charity stripe, including on the end of a three-point play with eight seconds left, as the men's basketball team fell to Notre Dame, 65-62, Sunday afternoon at the Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center.

Senior Chris Howard led all players with a career-high 23 points and had five rebounds, while junior Jarrid Famous also scored a career high with 18 points and added eight boards. Famous, though, missed the 'And 1' after getting fouled by Luke Harangody with eight seconds left in the game following a dunk that could have tied the game up at 63-all and possibly force an overtime.

Harangody sank two free throws on the other end of the court, and junior Dominique Jones' potential game-tying three-pointer rimmed out as time expired.

Harangody posted 19 points and 15 boards in a battle of potential BIG EAST Player of the Year candidates. Jones, after scoring 20 or more points in nine straight games, contributed just 10 but did add a game-high eight assists with five rebounds.

With the loss, the Bulls fell to 15-8 overall and 5-6 in the BIG EAST, while Notre Dame improved to 17-7, 6-5 in the conference.

The Irish sank 17 of their 21 free throws on the afternoon (81 percent), while the teams were nearly identical from the floor, with the Bulls holding a slight edge, 41.4 - 41.2 percent. Three-point shooting again plagued USF, as the Bulls hit just 4-of-14 (28.6 percent) on the day.

The Bulls, though, held a 36-16 advantage in points in the paint despite the presence of Harangody and committed just five turnovers on the afternoon.

It didn't take long for USF to find itself down early, as the Irish came out firing, building a quick 16-2 lead as USF hit for just one field goal in the first six minutes of the opening half. The Irish continued to pour it on from there, getting the lead up to 15, the largest of the game, on a three-pointer by Ben Hansbrough with 8:28 left in the half.

Despite being backed into the corner, the Bulls continued to scratch and claw, quickly getting the deficit back down to single digits after Famous hit a layup with 6:48 left.

A layup by sophomore Anthony Crater, who made his first career start in the game, got the score to 25-20 at the 5:04 mark, capping a 10-0 run by the Bulls. A layup by Toarlyn Fitzpatrick gave USF its first lead of the afternoon, 32-31, with 1:11 left, as the teams went into the half tied, 34-34. USF ended the half on a 24-9 run over the last eight minutes.

It took more than two minutes for either team to score in the second half, as the two squads would go back and forth with the lead early in the second half.

The Bulls held Notre Dame scoreless for nearly three and a half minutes as the second half ticked down to the 10-minute mark, as a three by Howard at 10:36 gave USF its largest lead of the afternoon at six with the scoreboard reading 50-44.

Notre Dame came right back and scored the next six points to tie it up at 50-all, as neither team could get a more than two-point advantage as time continued to tick away. Howard erased Notre Dame's two-point lead twice with a pair of layups, four of his 14 points in the second stanza, while senior Mike Mercer did the same at the 2:35 mark when his layup knotted the score up at 58-58.

Tory Jackson scored the next five points for Notre Dame to put USF into a five-point hole with under a minute remaining, but despite holding Notre Dame to without a basket in one of the last possessions of the game, Harangody's pair of free throws sealed USF's fate.

The Bulls will be back in action on the road Saturday as the team heads to Marquette for an 8:30 p.m. EST contest.
 
USF at Notre Dame
Postgame Notes
Feb. 7, 2010
Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center

Team

- USF's one turnover in the first half is the lowest of the last five games. The Bulls had two in the first half against Pitt and ended that game with just five. USF ended the game at Notre Dame with just five, marking the fourth-straight game and the fifth-time in six games USF had less than 10 turnovers in the game.

- ND led by 15 at 8:28 in the first half, but a 10-0 run allowed USF to chip its way back into the game.

- The game featured nine different tie scores as the lead changed on 10 different occasions.

- Notre Dame made six three-pointers while USF made four, meaning USF's opponents have hit more three-pointers in 11 of the past 12 games.

Individual

- Sophomore guard Anthony Crater made his first career start in the game at Notre Dame. Crater, who has now played in nine games for the Bulls, had three points, five assists and two rebounds and steals in his first start. Crater started in senior guard Mike Mercer's spot because Mercer missed practice this week due to the birth of his son, Michael.

- Senior guard Chris Howard scored 23 points, topping his season high of 16 at Cincinnati Jan. 20 and his career high of 19 set at Syracuse on Jan. 5, 2008.

- Howard scored 12-straight points for the Bulls from 12:36-3:17 in the second half. He had 14 second-half points all together.

- Junior Jarrid Famous posted 18 points on the afternoon to set a new career high, topping his previous best of 17 set at Providence Jan. 23.

- Senior Alex Rivas played a spectacular game against preseason BIG EAST Player of the Year Luke Harangody. Rivas grabbed six rebounds in 14 minutes while holding Harangody to under his season average in points on 5-of-17 shooting before Rivas fouled out with 2:57 left.

- For two straight games, Dominique Jones did not score in the first 11 minutes of the game. At Notre Dame, his first bucket was at 8:04 and at Georgetown he first scored at 8:25. Jones was just 3-of-17 on the afternoon from the floor.

- With his seven points in the first half, Dominique Jones is just the third Bull to score at least 500 points in three-straight seasons at USF. Charlie Bradley scored 901, 625 and 652 from 1982-85 and Altron Jackson had 565, 587 and 616 from 1999-2002.

- Jones had been collecting a majority of his points in the second period the last few games, but collected just three points in the second half after scoring seven in the first at Notre Dame. In the five games prior to ND, Jones scored 47 points in the first half and 98 in the second half.

- Jones ended the day with 10, marking the first time in 10 games he did not score 20 or more points. The last time was USF's BIG EAST season opener at Louisville, when Jones contributed just five points.