By TOM ZEBOLD
USF Senior Writer

NEW ORLEANS, MARCH 6, 2019 – Justin Brown knocked down five of the Bulls' season-high 13 three-pointers as USF completed a season sweep of Tulane with a 75-70 victory on Wednesday night.

USF (19-11, 8-9 in AAC) is one more victory away from posting the program's fifth 20-win season after getting a career-high 20 points from Brown. The sophomore from Birmingham, Ala., made four shots from long range in his 17-point second half in a game the Bulls led from start to finish.

David Collins (Youngstown, Ohio) also scored a game-high 20 points and made six of his eight total free throws in the final 1:12. Collins' late production at the line came at an important time after Tulane (4-25, 0-17 in AAC) cut a 16-point deficit in the second half down to four in the final minute.

T.J. Lang (Mobile, Ala.) added 11 points and went 3-for-6 from long range while USF fell one three-pointer short of matching the school's single-game record set in 1991. Alexis Yetna (Paris) came close to registering his 11^th double-double of the season with nine points and eight rebounds.

Freshman Michael Durr (Atlanta) grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds for the second straight outing to help the Bulls finish with a 38-31 edge on the glass. Freshman guard Xavier Castaneda (Chicago) totaled seven points and three assists in his third career start.

It was raining threes right away in Wednesday's action with USF making six of its first seven buckets from long range and Collins accounted for two of them. Lang joined the three-point party at the end of the flurry and his first field goal sparked a 7-0 run that extended the USF lead to 24-12 near the midpoint of the half.

USF finished the first half with eight three-pointers after back-to-back buckets by Antun Maricevic (Zagreb, Croatia) and Lang down the stretch helped the Bulls take a 37-26 lead into halftime.

Tulane worked a 16-point deficit in the second half down to seven with less than six minutes remaining before the Bulls heated back up. Brown sank two more threes during a 9-2 run and Lang made his third shot from downtown to pump the lead back up to 15 with 3:24 to play.

The rallying Green Wave got within four in the final minute but ran out of time after Collins sank three free throws in the final 19 seconds.   

Quotable
Head coach Brian Gregory's thoughts on the Bulls using a collective effort to get back on track on the road:
"It's a step for the program because of the focus that we had. We were laser-focused."

"JB responded unbelievably in the second half and played a really good game. I thought T.J. again played well for us and did a really good job on (Tulane's Caleb Daniels). Daniels got loose at the end in the last two or three minutes, but before that he did a great job on him and that was a concern."

"Michael was great on the glass again with another 10-rebound performance. We got a lot of good basketball from a lot of guys and give X credit. To throw a freshman into that and say, 'OK, you're starting this game and by the way, your point guard is 6-6 and 230 pounds. You got him, go ahead.' He did a really good job today."

Key Stats
13 – USF set a season high with 13 three-pointers and fell one short of matching the program's single-game record set against Oral Roberts on Dec. 7, 1991.
17 – The Bulls scored 17 points off 14 Tulane turnovers, including 12 points in the second half off eight takeaways.

Notables

• USF is one more victory away from posting the program's fifth 20-win season and first since the 2011-12 season.
• USF completed the season sweep of Tulane after a 66-48 win over the Green Wave in Tampa on Jan. 9. USF has won three of the past four meetings.
• Justin Brown set a new career high with 20 points after matching his career best with five three-pointers.
• Freshman guard Xavier Castaneda made his third start of the season in place of Laquincy Rideau, who sat out of Wednesday's game. Castaneda finished with seven points and three assists.

Up Next
USF will shoot for its 20^th win in the regular season finale against SMU that's set for Sunday at 4 p.m. inside the Yuengling Center (TV: ESPNU). Reserve your seats at USFBullsTix.com.
 
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.