TAMPA, Fla. – Feb. 28, 2026 – University of South Florida men's basketball standout Wes Enis was an afterthought coming out of high school.
 
"I was a zero-star prospect,'' Enis said.
 
He paused … for emphasis.
 
"Zero stars. Zero.''
 
From a sobering world of rejection — he was consistently cut from his area's big-time AAU teams and largely ignored by Division I recruiters — Enis has matured into a prime catalyst for the scorching-hot USF Bulls.
 
If the Bulls (20-8, 12-3) defeat the Tulane Green Wave (17-11, 8-7) in Sunday afternoon's game at the Yuengling Center, USF will clinch at least a share of the program's second American Conference regular-season championship in the past three seasons.
 
Enis (pronounced: Eee-nis), a 6-foot-2 guard who worked his way into NCAA Division II All-American status last season, has consistently aided the Bulls with his spectacular three-point shooting and ever-evolving all-around game. He's averaging 15.5 points per game (second on the team).
 
"In my relatively short 18 years in the business, Wes Enis is absolutely one of the top-five hardest workers I've been around,'' Bulls assistant coach Jamie Quarles said. "He didn't shoot it great early in the year. But watching the way he works, you knew that it would eventually translate into him having a really, really good season."
 
"In our first conversations with Wes, when we got off a Zoom conversation with him, I remember our coaching staff being around a conference table and everybody saying, 'Whoa! This dude here is a worker. We need to do whatever we can to get this dude in our program.' I mean, there were telltale signs.''
 
With the Lincoln Memorial Railsplitters, a Division II program in Harrogate, Tenn., Enis was South Atlantic Conference Player of the Year. Probably an expected accolade for a guy who averaged 20.3 points and shot 41.3-percent from three-point range. But he was also the league's Defensive Player of the Year.


 
Then there were the Enis bloodlines.
 
His father, Curtis Enis, was a consensus All-American running back at Penn State (1995-97), where he rushed for 1,363 yards and 19 touchdowns in his final Nittany Lion season before declaring for the NFL Draft. He became the fifth overall pick — with the Chicago Bears, he played in the inaugural game at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium — but his NFL career was limited to three seasons due to a degenerative condition in his left knee.
 
"The fact that my father was a big-time college football player and NFL draft pick, when people learn that, of course it's a constant subject,'' Enis said. "What people might not know is he probably liked basketball more than football. I think he could dunk in the seventh grade. He scored like 2,000 points in high school and he had scholarship offers from Creighton and some other Big East schools.
 
"But how can you say no to Penn State football? He had a great career. People then ask why I didn't play football. Well, I actually did. I wasn't allowed until my eighth-grade year and I honestly wasn't a big fan of all the hitting, so I stuck to basketball. And that has turned out OK.''
 
Actually, better than OK.
 
Enis' father saw to that.
 
Going into his eighth-grade year, Enis was struggling offensively. His shots weren't falling. One day, his father said, "OK, we're going to try something.''
 
Enis, a right-hander, became a left-handed shooter. Things changed dramatically.
 
"It felt more natural coming out,'' Enis said. "I felt more comfortable. My vision was better on the shots and it just lined up. So I never looked back.''
 
Enis worked on that shot feverishly. Many days, he was intent on making 800 shots from 3-point range — 420 in the morning, 380 at night, from seven different spots on the floor, catch-and-shoot, off-the-bounce, angled, straight-on, you name it. Enis puts in so much off-practice sweat equity that Bulls head coach Bryan Hodgson occasionally asks him to leave the gym.
 
"We had to scale him back,'' Hodgson said. "We had to consider the load he was putting on his body. This is a non-stop, relentless worker. He had a foot injury, where some other guys would've shut it down until it got better, but he fought through some pain. He got sick on the road (at Temple), but got himself to the point where he could play. Wes just has a phenomenal will to succeed.''
 
Like many coaches, Hodgson said he wasn't familiar with Enis when the player came out of high school.
 
"I think Wes is right — he definitely was a zero star,'' Hodgson said. "I don't know that he actually slipped through the cracks. I think he has gotten that much better. Give credit to his coaches at Lincoln Memorial.
 
"He went from a point to not shooting it that well (early in the season) to having two different games where he made 10 (three-pointers). We knew that if he kept pounding on that stone, it was going to break eventually. He's a tough kid and he's a winner. He's not going to pout and cry over his mistakes. He's going to find a way to fix them.''
 
When the shots aren't falling as consistently, Enis said he knows his defensive effort can still be a constant. On an atypical night at Wichita State, when he suffered through seven turnovers, Enis produced 11 rebounds and his first career double-double. Wednesday night, in a 75-56 victory at Rice, Enis endured one of his most frustrating shooting nights (1-for-11, three points overall), but chipped in with six rebounds, four steals and three assists.
 


His signature moments occurred on offense — 36 points against UAB (10-for-22 from three-point range) and 32 at Tulsa (10-for-19 from 3-point range).
 
"That's the best part of the game, when you're in that flow state and you're so locked into the moment,'' Enis said. "You're not worried about hitting your next shot or your last shot. You're just in the present.
 
"Back then (coming out of high school), I felt I could do things like this at the Division I level. I knew if I kept working, everything would turn out all right. The results would be now or later. I was told my whole life that if I worked hard, I would eventually reap the benefits. The only thing you can really control in this game is how hard you work.''
 
Wes Enis, once a forgotten man, is front and center with the USF Bulls. The chances of him being ignored by American Conference opponents?
 
Zero.
 
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About USF Men's Basketball
South Florida men's basketball named Bryan Hodgson, 37, as the program's 12th head coach on March 24, 2025. Hodgson came to Tampa from Arkansas State, where he led the program to back-to-back 20-win seasons and its first postseason appearance since 1999 in his two seasons at the helm.
 
The program, entering its 55^th season in 2025-26, most recently won the American Athletic Conference regular season championship in 2023-24 and has made 13 postseason appearances, including three NCAA Tournaments, nine NITs, and a CBI championship in 2019. Three former Bulls – Chucky Atkins, Charlie Bradley, and Rodenko Dobras – have had their jerseys retired and are members of the USF Athletic Hall of Fame. The Bulls play their home games at the 10,400-seat Yuengling Center on the USF Tampa campus.

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