Tulsa takes down No. 24 South Florida, 76-70

In a stunning takedown of No. 24 South Florida, Tulsa's backcourt duo of P.J. Haggerty and Cobe Williams absolutely took over the game.

With Haggerty scoring 32 points, and Williams adding 23 points and 11 rebounds, the pair overwhelmed conference leader USF.

Tulsa (16-14, 7-11 AAC) overcame a double-digit deficit in the first half to defeat the No. 1 seed in the upcoming AAC tournament, USF, 76-70 on Senior Day in front of a frenzied crowd of 5,515 at the Reynolds Center.

Tulsa ended a remarkable 15-game winning streak for the Bulls, and avenged a 69-50 loss at USF (23-6, 16-2) less than a month ago on Valentine's Day.

"At halftime, we were talking about going out there and giving extra effort and pushing through so we could come out on top, because we believed we could do it," Williams said. "Everybody turned up that motor."

The halftime deficit of 37-31 could have been worse as USF's defense and athletic ability had Tulsa down by as many as 12 points late in the first half.

The late first half surge carried over into the second half, and Haggerty finally got Tulsa caught up with 10:18 remaining at 52-52, and a drive by Williams to the bucket put the Golden Hurricane up for good at 54-52 with 9:27 left.

That set off a 9-0 run that put Tulsa up 59-52 at the 7:34 mark. From that point on, Tulsa never led by less than 4 points until the final minute, and was ahead by as many as 11 points with 2:32 left after free throws by Haggerty.

Haggerty was absolutely on fire in the second half with 28 points, making circus shot after circus shot. Seemingly whatever he wanted to do with the ball, he did. USF was helpless to stop him.

One of Haggerty's off-balance shots down the stretch while being fouled, from the left side by the baseline, looked like it almost went over the backboard.

"I'd be lying if I said I thought he'd score 28 in the second half against a ranked team," said second-year TU coach Eric Konkol of his expectations of Haggerty going into the season. "But I did know that he would score. I absolutely planned on him being a guy we can count on."

But even with Haggerty, playing against a dangerous, terrific team like USF wasn't going to be an easy ending. That 11-point lead was down to 4 points in just 34 seconds at 69-65, with 1:58 remaining.

And the scary thing is that it was almost 69-66, as Kasean Pryor, who finished with 29 points and 11 rebounds, missed a free throw on what would have capped a 4-point play after a three-pointer.

The USF full-court press gave Tulsa problems, as TU was having trouble getting the ball up the court for a while, and USF whittled the lead to 70-67 with 1:20 remaining.

But Williams hit two free throws with 59.5 seconds left to get the lead back up to five at 72-67, and Tulsa never led by less than 4 points the rest of the game.

Tulsa survived a double-technical foul, which was called on Pryor and Haggerty. Pryor originally got the T after he shoved Haggerty, but Haggerty had dribbled the ball, embarrassingly for Pryor, around Pryor's legs well after being fouled with 44.9 seconds left, and his one of two free throws made the lead 73-68.

It didn't look good early, with USF pick-pocketing Tulsa a few times early, showing the defense that had made the Bulls the overwhelming best AAC team in conference play. Even with the loss, USF wins the conference by two games.

Besides Haggerty and Williams, a key to the game was Jesaiah McWright coming off the bench to lead Tulsa's defensive onslaught in the second half where the Bulls shot 30 percent. In 20 minutes of playing time, McWright didn't pile up stats, only scoring 3 points before fouling out late in the game, but Konkol was impressed.

"I thought (McWright) was as important as any guy on the floor," Konkol said. "His role for us is just straight energy and toughness. I thought he chased those guys around really, really well."

Tulsa's defensive effort was so strong, especially in the second half, that the Bulls made only 4 of 23 on three-pointers (17.4 percent), and shot 36.8 percent for the game.

"I told our guys there is really only one stat that really changes things for them. It's when they shoot under 40 percent, they are 2-4 coming into this game," Konkol said. "Anything else, they found a way to overcome. So to hold them to 37 percent, that was a big deal."

The best job defensively was against leading South Florida scorer Chris Youngblood, who scored 12 points, going 3 of 12 from the field, including 0 for 6 on three-pointers. This is important because Youngblood came into the game shooting 41.1 percent on threes and scoring 15.3 points per game.

Offensively, TU shot 42.9 percent for the game, but upped it to 52 percent in the second half.

"I thought we did a better job of attacking their switches and changes of their defense, and we had a greater poise about us," Konkol said of TU in the second half. "Our young guys have grown up in those weeks since we played them last. I'm really proud they didn't get discouraged."

For Williams, who along with Haggerty was all over the court defensively as well, it was an emotional game playing his last home game in his one season at TU, and has last game in four seasons playing for Konkol.

"I was nervous, I'm not going to lie to you," Williams said. "I feel like the nervousness was just about being overly excited."

It was emotional for Konkol as well, who coached Williams for three years at Louisiana Tech.

"Remembering (Williams) as a pint-sized little high school guy, and what he has grown into, is really, really special," Konkol said of his only senior who played Saturday. Ari Seals is Tulsa's only other senior.

Next up for Tulsa is East Carolina (14-17, 7-11) early Thursday in the AAC Tournament in Fort Worth. Tulsa lost at ECU 62-57 early in the season in the two teams' only meeting.