By TOM ZEBOLD
USF Senior Writer

TAMPA, JAN. 9, 2019 – Leading from start to finish, red-hot USF reached another important program milestone with a 66-48 win over Tulane at the Yuengling Center on Wednesday night.

USF (12-3, 2-1 in AAC) has posted its most victories since the 2013-14 season and extended its home winning streak to seven games by dominating on both ends of the floor. Head coach Brian Gregory's surging Bulls scored 35 points off 26 Tulane turnovers and grabbed 12 steals in their eighth win in the past nine outings.

David Collins (Youngstown, Ohio) had an all-around solid performance with a game-high 17 points, five assists, five rebounds and a career-high five steals.

Alexis Yetna (Paris) registered his eighth double-double of the season with 15 points and 11 rebounds. The redshirt freshman forward set a new career high with a trio of three-pointers and his first came at the end of a 10-0 run that spotted USF a 26-12 lead in the opening half.

T.J. Lang (Mobile, Ala.) led the Bulls early on by scoring nine of his 11 total points in the first period. Along with from Lang's lift, aggressive USF scored 17 points off 15 Tulane turnovers on the way to a 34-26 halftime lead.

Mayan Kiir (Bradenton, Fla.) scored all eight of his points in the first half and slammed home a monster dunk following a Collins steal during the 10-0 run that pumped the USF lead up to 26-12 more than midway through the period.

A layup by Justin Brown (Birmingham, Ala.) stretched the USF lead to 11 with 16:49 remaining and the Green Wave never got within single digits the rest of the way. Tulane (4-11, 0-3) went 8-for-25 from the field after the break, including a 2-for-14 showing from long range.

Quotable
Head coach Brian Gregory on the strides the Bulls continue to make in his second season with the program:
"We're making progress. We tell our guys, 'We'll get to where we need to get to when we're good enough.' We're not good enough yet, but we're making the right progress. We're making the right steps. And as I said last year, it's never on a straight line. There's dips, some high points and some low points. You've just got to keep going through it."

Gregory on the Bulls' defensive effort leading to big results:
"Defensively, we played with strength and some toughness, and some grit. We forced 26 turnovers and we don't press. That shows we were strong defensively on drives. We were strong on ball screens and we were very, very active off the ball."

Key Stats
35 – USF scored 35 points off 26 Tulane turnovers.
34 – The Bulls dominated in points in the paint by a 34-12 margin.
12 – USF's steals total, led by five from David Collins. Laquincy Rideau and Mayan Kiir finished with three apiece.
8-for-25 – Tulane's success rate on field goals in the second half (32 percent) while the Bulls gained distance on the scoreboard.

Notable

• USF's 12 victories are the program's most since the 2013-14 season. The Bulls are off to their first 2-1 start in The American since joining the conference in 2013.
• Alexis Yetna leads The American with eight double-doubles this season. USF was one of only two schools in the NCAA with a conference leader in rebounds, assists and steals leading up to Wednesday's action.
• Laquincy Rideau finished with three steals and headed into Wednesday's game ranked fifth in the NCAA with a conference-leading 2.9 steals per game.

Up Next
USF travels to Philadelphia for a conference matchup at Temple that's set for Saturday at 2 p.m. (TV: ESPNU).

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About USF Men's Basketball
The USF men's basketball team is led by head coach Brian Gregory. On March 22, 2017, Gregory was introduced as the 10^th head coach in program history. He previously led programs at Georgia Tech (2011-16) and Dayton (2003-11). Gregory spent nearly a decade as an assistant coach under Michigan State's Hall of Fame head coach Tom Izzo and helped the Spartans win the 2000 NCAA National Championship. Gregory brings nearly 250 career head coaching wins and six postseason appearances, including the 2010 NIT Championship, to Tampa. In his first season at the helm of the Bulls, Gregory led the team to its first 10-plus win season since 2013-14. 

USF has retired three numbers in its 47-year history: Chucky Atkins (12), Charlie Bradley (30) and Radenko Dobras (31). The Bulls have earned three NCAA tournament bids and appeared in the NIT eight times.

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