The No. 17 Syracuse Orange will complete their three-game road stretch Saturday afternoon against the South Florida Bulls (2 p.m. on SNY) in a Big East Conference contest at the St. Petersburg Times Forum in Tampa, FL. The Orange (19-4, 6-4 Big East) will try to build on their Wednesday victory, 66-58, at the Connecticut Huskies (No. 6 in the AP poll and No. 7 in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches poll) that ended a four-game losing streak. USF (8-15, 2-8) has lost three of it's last four games, the latest was a 68-63 loss to the Providence Friars on Wednesday.
Currently, the Bulls, who have the second-worst record in the 16-team conference, are led by four-year coach Stan Heath, who's 46-69 at USF. Junior forward Augustus Gilchrist leads the team in scoring average. In 10 Big East games, Gilchrist is averaging 14.8 point-per game and 7.8 rebounds-per game.
As a team, USF is last in the league in scoring average (63.0) and second-worst in field goal percentage (.418). Surprisingly, USF's season-high in scoring (79 points) came against Providence, Jan. 17. Also, USF doesn't shoot well from behind the 3-point arc (.301 percent -- third-worst in the league). However, the Bulls do rebound the ball well (37.9 per-game -- ranked sixth in the league) and make their free throws (.706 -- fifth).
Syracuse owns a 7-1 record against USF, who last beat SU in 2008.
Some information for this piece was provided by SUAthletics.com and GoUSFBulls.com.