Nothing cures a slump like playing South Florida.

It was the perfect recipe for Tulsa to start coming back from a dreadful start to the conference season.

Jeriah Horne and Sam Griffin scored 23 and 21 points, respectively, to lead TU to a 76-45 victory Saturday night in front of an announced crowd of 3,012 at the Reynolds Center.

Tulsa (7-12, 1-7 AAC) improved its all-time record to 11-0 against USF, and in the process ended a nightmarish 0-7 start in the AAC.

"We came together. We had a meeting as players and coaches, and I felt like it brought us closer," Griffin said. "You saw it today, we just played with a great connection.

"We picked it up another notch on defense, and you saw it on the court, nobody was slacking, we all played just hard."

With Tulsa's problems on defense all year, it helped to be playing a South Florida team that is the worst 3-point shooting team in the nation at 24.6 percent. USF made 3 of 18 three-pointers (16.7 percent), and was held to 30.2 percent overall from the floor after averaging 37.8 percent on the year.

For one of the first times this year, Tulsa's 3-2 matchup zone was effective, harking back to years past under TU coach Frank Haith where it has often been a very successful defense.

"We played from start to finish," said Haith. "We competed our butts off, we were talking on defense, we were talking about what we wanted to get accomplished from our last performance in terms of defense.

"We had Sam and Jeriah have great production on offense, but I'm thrilled about what we did on the other end. We were talking and we were flying around. Defense travels, so hopefully we can build on that."

In contrast to USF's offensive woes, Tulsa has shot 35.2 percent on three's and 43.5 percent from the floor. It hasn't been the offense that has caused the malaise this season for TU, although clutch shooting down the stretch has been lacking.

The biggest problem has been on defense all year, and was accentuated by the matador defense Tulsa played at Tulane Wednesday night in its 34-point loss where it gave up over 60 percent shooting from the floor and over 65 percent on three-pointers.

Also not helping is that Tulsa's schedule in its first seven conference games has been especially rough. In those games, Tulsa's opponents are the top 6 teams in the 11-team conference. Their combined records are 33-14 in conference play, and 81-36 overall.

"It's been rough on us, but we continued to have faith," Horne said of Tulsa's poor AAC beginning.

Including South Florida (6-13, 1-6), the four teams Tulsa hadn't played in its first seven conference games are 8-21 in AAC play and 39-36 overall.

With a 1-5 record in conference games decided by five points or less, and 1-7 overall, Tulsa has been snake bitten all season.

But no longer.

Against USF, Tulsa got out to a 40-27 halftime lead behind 19 first half points from Griffin.

It was deja vu at halftime. In Tulsa's last home game, it had been up 13 points at halftime to Memphis and up 14 points early in the second half before collapsing in a two-point loss.

But not this time.

The Golden Hurricane extended their lead to 18 points at 49-31 less than four minutes into the second half, and led by at least 20 points for over the last 12 minutes of the game.

"We didn't even mention that we were up 13," Griffin said of the talk at halftime. "We mentioned that these next four minutes when we come out are crucial. We didn't mention anything about the past."

Having Horne, Tulsa's leading scorer at 16.4 points per game, back in the fold was a key. He mysteriously played just one minute in the first half, and four minutes overall, in the Tulane debacle.

Another thing that was a key was Tulsa's performance coming off of turnovers, where the Golden Hurricane outscored the Bulls 24-0 on transition off of turnovers.

Beating USF may not seem like a big deal because of its poor record, but South Florida has some talent. Earlier in the year, USF lost by just six points to current No. 1 team Auburn.

Caleb Murphy scored 13 points to lead the USF as the only player for the Bulls in double figures.

Tulsa's starting lineup changed from the games lately by having a very mature lineup - not leaving seniors on the bench or its top players. Horne, LaDavius Draine and Darien Jackson are in their fifth year of playing major college basketball. And Griffin, Tulsa's second leading scorer at 15.8 points, had lately been coming off the bench. Center Nikita Konstantynovskyi was the other starter.

"It was something. It was just fun playing out there, honestly," Griffin said.

"It shows what we're capable of. This win, all it does is motivate us to come back and win again. We know what we're capable of, so we're not going to sell ourselves short."

Tulsa's next two games are on the road - Tuesday night at archrival Wichita State (10-8, 1-5), and Saturday afternoon at Temple (11-7, 4-3).