Buffalo, N.Y. – March 18, 2026 – What are the odds? In this ultimate hardscrabble town, here comes the NCAA Tournament's biggest curiosity, a scorching-hot head coach who has suddenly become Western New York's homecoming king. He's returning to the area where he long ago discovered his passion and found his voice.
 
And he brings with him a team full of previously unwanted prospects and classic underdogs, a group that was somehow molded into a championship unit. It's a fast-moving, uncompromising, defensive-minded squad that scares the daylights out of every potential opponent.
 
Not a bad story.
 
Blue-collar head coach and his blue-collar team … in a blue-collar town.
 
Get ready to fall in love with head coach Bryan Hodgson and his No. 11-seeded USF Bulls (25-8), champions of the American Conference, who face the No. 6-seeded Louisville Cardinals (23-10) in Thursday afternoon's NCAA first-round game at the KeyBank Center.
 
Hodgson's story began in this region, where he was born to a 14-year-old mother, then placed into foster care as an infant. He had been placed on a wood-burning stove — as punishment for wetting his diaper. Hodgson said he still has the scars — physically and mentally.
 
Just before his third birthday, Hodgson was adopted by Larry and Rebecca Hodgson.
 
"I was a foster kid in a hectic household,'' said Hodgson, who said he learned to mix and mingle with all types of people because he was constantly surrounded by other foster kids. "My getaway was to be in the driveway and shoot hoops. I fell in love with this game.
 
"To be in this chair (as a head coach) and be able to do this, it was my dream as a child. I grew up watching this (NCAA Tournament) on TV. I'm out there watching the NCAA Selection Show and USF's name pops up going to Buffalo, New York. I'm from Western New York.''
 
What are the odds? But this is more than just NCAA Tournament irony.
 
Hodgson remembers going to college with designs on becoming a history teacher. He soon called his father and said he was changing his major to sports management. He wanted to coach college basketball.
 
His father was supportive, but concerned. "How are you going to pay your bills?'' the father asked. Hodgson said he intended on becoming successful enough where that wouldn't be a problem.
 
Hodgson said his father suffers from dementia and has been unable to attend any games during his three-season head-coaching tenure (including two at Arkansas State). USF earned its NCAA bid, along with a No. 1 seed as the American Conference regular-season and tournament champion.
 
But the NCAA Selection Committee has presented Hodgson a rare gift.
 
"It's so hard for my father to travel,'' Hodgson said. "Now he's going to get to watch me coach in person at Buffalo, New York. I'm going to have my mom and dad in attendance. I'm so blessed. We're going to have a great crowd (of family and friends) there. I couldn't be more thankful.
 
"God is so good.''
 
Chip On Their Shoulders
 
When Hodgson took the USF job last spring, he had to remake the roster. It was importing 13 new players (from 12 different destinations).
 
What are the odds of producing a champion from this mix?
 
Starting stalwarts Wes Enis — a self-described "zero-star prospect'' out of high school — and Josh Omojafo began at the NCAA Division II level. Devin Haid laid off basketball for three seasons, working as a Wal-Mart stocking clerk, before returning to junior college. Three freshmen are from Canada, while another Los Angeles-bred freshman, point guard Gavin Hightower, came to USF on the rebound after a coaching change at his initial school.
 
"It's quite a crew,'' associate head coach Tee Butters said. "If you go back to July, I'm not sure you'd predict us to be where we are. But this has been an incredible team in terms of the way guys have connected with each other, the way they have meshed.
 
"We're at the most important time of the year, playing our best ball of the year. That's always what you're shooting for, but it's often very hard to do. We held it together, then took off. This team, even with its mix of personalities, has just gotten better and better.''
 
Enis, who was Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year for his NCAA Division II conference at Lincoln Memorial, said he improved greatly in the two seasons following high school. He said it's a mistake to disparage anyone as a "D-2 player'' and insinuate they can't measure up at a higher level.
 
"There are really, really good players in D-2,'' said Enis, who was named Most Outstanding Player of the American Conference Tournament. "People might not think that, but it's true. Everybody on our team has a story. None of us came up the easy way.
 
"I just think we're a very gritty group, a plow-through-the-mud kind of group. We had nothing handed to us. Our backgrounds have made us who we are — a bunch of gritty, gutty dudes. I love that about this team.''
 
Hodgson secured a foundation by bringing two of his top performers from Arkansas State — guard Joseph Pinion and center Izaiyah Nelson — but neither began as a sure thing. Pinion originally signed with Arkansas, where he played sparingly. Nelson once was an afterthought, but took off as a star when Hodgson assured him that hard work combined with his raw talent could elevate his stock to NBA prospect.
 
"It's definitely cool how we have a lot of guys who were overlooked at their last spot or didn't really get the chance they thought they were going to get … and now we've all come together to prove everyone wrong,'' Pinion said. "We've all been written off. We all have a chip on our shoulder. I think we take that personally and we show that every game.''
 
"Just call us the underdogs,'' Nelson said. "We're a whole team of underdogs. It makes it sweet when you can prove people wrong.''
 
Coaching Staff Continuity
 
Coaches can be underdogs as well.
 
Two decades ago, Hodgson, Butters and Jamie Quarles became fast friends while working the Mike Krzyzewski camp at Duke University. Hodgson generally had an exhausting circuit, jumping from camp to camp, Syracuse to Pittsburgh to West Virginia to Duke. There was plenty of caffeine and not much sleep.
 
The young coaches made a secret pact: Whoever first became a head coach, he would hire the other two.
 
In 2023, Hodgson interviewed for the Arkansas State head-coaching job at a Birmingham country club (at the time, Hodgson was assistant coach at the University of Alabama). When the standard question came about who Hodgson might hire on his staff, he said, "Well, you can meet them for yourselves. I brought them with me.''
 
Then Hodgson presented Butters and Quarles.
 
Arkansas State administrators later termed that creative move as "genius.''
 
Hodgson got the job.
 
When Hodgson was recently named American Conference Coach of the Year, he said it was a "staff award,'' quickly praising the work of Butters, Quarles, Derek Rongstad, Logan Ingram, Tyler Pacheco and his special assistant, Tobin Anderson, a former head coach who will take over the program at Tennessee Tech once USF's NCAA run has ended.
 
There are no former NBA players on USF's staff or coaches with a blue-blood pedigree. Hodgson began as a junior-college assistant coach. Most of the others have been career-long grinders.
 
"I have a ton of respect for Bryan Hodgson,'' Louisville coach Pat Kelsey said. "He was a junior-college coach and grinded and reached this level. It's not like he landed on second base or something. He grinded. He has the respect of everybody in our profession because going that route is the hard way. I started at the mid-major level and worked my way up, but it's even harder to start at the junior-college level and work your way up.''
 
Hodgson's path mirrors the route taken by his staff members.
 
"I'd trust each of those guys with my life,'' Hodgson said. "I get emotional when I think about our staff. They're so selfless and so committed. With as much time as we put in, you'd think we'd run from each other once the season is over, right? We plan vacations together. We generally like each other. And it makes for such a special working environment. I think players pick up on that.''
 
"We definitely take our lead from Coach Hodgson,'' Butters said. "He's true to himself. He holds people accountable. In today's era, with guys getting paid and transferring regularly, he's going to coach them the exact same, regardless of the situation. That doesn't always happen at other places, so I think that approach is why we've had a special season at South Florida.''
 
It also helped the coaches clearly identify the types of players who would succeed at USF.
 
"When you're replacing 10-to-12 players every year, it's really important to get the right pieces that are going to fit together,'' Hodgson said. "Across the college basketball landscape, there are places spending lots of money on their rosters, but they don't have an identity.
 
"We were very, very thorough in our evaluations, not just from a basketball standpoint, but also from an individual and character standpoint. We have guys who excel in their roles and that makes the team succeed.''
 
Players of all shapes and sizes, many overlooked or forgotten, now coming together to form a roster with all the right qualities.
 
Coaches who came up the hard way, working in unison to produce a memorable, record-breaking season.
 
Hodgson's homecoming and an emotional reunion with his father.
 
USF's diverse pieces have fit perfectly. There's an American Conference championship and the potential for some damage at the NCAA Tournament.
 
The storylines are amazing. The nation's basketball fans are going to love these USF Bulls.
 
What are the odds?
 
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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, amidst its 55^th season in 2025-26, captured its second regular-season American Conference Championship in program history this season, finishing 23-8. In the postseason, South Florida captured its second postseason title in program history during its 14th postseason appearance, earning its fourth NCAA Tournament appearance.  The Bulls have also made 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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