Tulane Men Have Late Game Tonight vs South Florida
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Tulane University men's basketball is back in Uptown for a Wednesday night showdown with South Florida in Fogelman Arena. The Green Wave will look to avoid its first five-game skid since losing five in a row from November 22 to December 7, 2024, with a victory over the Bulls.
The game between the Wave and the Bulls is set to tipoff at 8 p.m. on ESPNU. Fans can also listen to the action live on the Tulane Sports Network from Learfield on 106.7 The Ticket.
This marks the 45th all-time meeting between Tulane and South Florida with the Green Wave leading the series 26-18. The Green Wave won the lone meeting between the conference foes last season 73-70 in New Orleans on January 11, 2025. The Wave holds a 13-8 advantage at home against South Florida including wins in each of the last two matchups in Uptown. Under Ron Hunter Tulane is 5-2 against the Bulls with a 2-1 record at home.
Greenies Have Lost Four Straight
In its last time out, Tulane dropped its fourth consecutive contest despite a career performance from redshirt junior Rowan Brumbaugh. The Washington, D.C., native poured in a career-high 35 points on 11-of-15 shooting from the field and 12-of-13 from the free throw line, but it was ultimately not enough as the Green Wave lost 73-70 at Charlotte on Friday, January 23.
Brumbaugh is one of only three players in the American Conference to score at least 30 points in multiple games this season. Following his performance at Charlotte he joined Ben Bradford of Charlotte and Wes Enis of South Florida as the only players with two 30-point performances this season.
Shots Not Falling
Tulane is ranked 10th out of the thirteen teams in the American Conference in field goal percentage and three point shooting, hitting just under 43% from the field and a tad below 32% of their tres. Wave coach Ron Hunter is hoping his team's shooting luck will change soon.
"(We've got to) Make shots," Hunter told us bluntly. "If we make (our) shots, we're a different team. We're different defensively, the way we flow offensively. Even in the last five minutes of the Charlotte game, we started making shots." Which closed a double-digit deficit to three by game's end.
"And I'm talking we've missed wide-open shots," Hunter lamented. "We've missed fast breaks. It gets in our head, We've got to mentally fight through that. When things go bad, we just can't panic. Go do something different. Go get a stop (defensively). Control the things you can control. That's what we've been talking about."
Scouting the Bulls
South Florida enters the game Wednesday night on a two-game winning streak after defeating Florida Atlantic 89-75 at home on Sunday to improve to 13-7 overall record and a 5-2 in conference play. The Bulls a 4-2 record on the road this season including a 3-0 mark in league play with wins at North Texas, at Tulsa, and at UAB. In those true road contests, they are averaging 90.8 points with 11.2 made three-pointers per game.
This season South Florida leads the American in scoring offense (89.8), rebounds per game (43.35), offensive rebounds per game (15.70), assists per game (17.6), free throw attempts per game (28.4), free throws made per game (20.8), and three-point attempts per game (30.1).
Five players average more than 12 points per game for the conference's highest scoring offense. Izaiyah Nelson leads the charge for the Bulls averaging a double-double with 15.7 points and 10.1 rebounds per game.
Hunter says he may have to mix things up tonight to get the Green Wave going.
"I'm not (talking) 100% (changes), but there will be lineup changes," Hunter shared. "I've never liked making rash decisions. I want to see how we do (this week in practices). We need a little shake up. We need to kind of reset a little bit."
Following the matchup against the Bulls, Tulane will visit the Memphis Tigers on Sunday, February 1. The contest between the Wave and the Tigers is slated for a 2 p.m. tip on ESPN2.
Portions Courtesy Tulane Athletics
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.