By Kenneth Cross
TAMPA – As South Florida Bulls head basketball coach Amir Abdur-Rahim contemplated Wednesday night’s 68-63 loss to Central Michigan, he blamed himself for a lack of preparation for the Bulls heading into the contest.
“I have to do a better job of getting our guys prepared during the week and making sure that we don’t take steps backward from a culture standpoint,” said Abdur-Rahim.
Chippewas guard Anthony Pritchard led all scorers with 23 points while Bulls swingman Chris Youngblood led USF with 20 and Selton Miguel added 16.
South Florida opened the season with a 96-52 win over South Carolina State last Thursday but faced a much tougher opponent in the Chippewas. CMU already had played Oklahoma and Florida State where it lost definitively in both games, but learned the level to play in order to challenge quality opponents.
Meanwhile, the Bulls may have had a tough time turning the page from their encouraging output against the Bulldogs of the MEAC.
“We live in an environment where everything is individualized,” said Abdur-Rahim. “We play a team sport, so you probably have two or three guys who are getting, ‘great game’, ‘great game,’ great game.’ Now, it becomes a little bit about them.”
The Bulls struggled on both ends of the floor as CMU made 8-of-15 three-point field goals while South Florida shot only 31.6 percent.
“We are going to have games where we don’t shoot it as well, but we have to hang our hat on that defensive end,” said Abdur-Rahim. “We didn’t do a very good job of communicating in the first half and we left their primary shooters wide open.”
Central Michigan made five triples from five different players in the first 12:09 of the first half. When Jamal Davis canned his triple off the right baseline, the Chippewas took a 27-19 lead.
“In the first half, communication wasn’t as high as it needed to be,” explained Youngblood, who played for Abdur-Rahim for three years at Kennesaw State. “They made six three-pointers in the first half and only finished with eight, so obviously we didn’t do a good job defending the three in the first half.”
For CMU, Pritchard scored nine in the first four and a half minutes of the second half. He generally answered South Florida’s early baskets before he and Paul McMillan, IV, nailed the two second-half threes to push the score to 59-44 with eight minutes left.
USF cut its deficit to five on baskets by Youngblood and Corey Walker, Jr. The Bulls stayed in the game by making 26-of-31 free throws as they continued the aggressive play which put them on the free-throw line.
“We are going to win games, we are going to win big games and how we handle success will tell us how successful we are going to be,” explained Abdur-Rahim. “It’s a great teaching point, going forward, and it’s great to learn it now.”