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Dons Hosts Santa Clara Monday at 7:00 PM In Home Finale
Feb. 16, 2006
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USF (10-14, 6-5 WCC), fresh off one of their most impressive wins of the year host Bay Area rival Santa Clara Monday night (7:00 p.m., FSN, KQKE 960 AM, Sirius Satellite Radio 125) at War Memorial Gymnasium. It is USF "Senior Night" with Jerome Gumbs, Dommanic Ingerson and Jason Wallace-Carter making their final appearances at home.
It is an important game for USF as they are tied for third place in the standings with San Diego, just one game ahead of St. Mary's with three games remaining. After the Santa Clara contest, USF finishes the WCC regular season with the difficult Northwest trip. USF has already equaled the number of conference wins they had last season with six and can build on that with their final three games.
USF lost a heartbreaker in San Diego on Saturday 71-68. The Dons had chances to win the contest but three missed free-throws in the final 1:08 and a charging foul with :08 left on a drive by Armondo Surratt did them in.
WCC STANDINGS:Team WCC PCT Overall #5 GON 11-0 1.000 22-3 LMU 8-3 .727 11-14 USF 6-5 .545 10-14 USD 6-5 .545 16-8 SMC 5-6 .455 13-11 PEP 3-8 .272 7-16 POR 3-8 .272 9-16 SCU 2-9 .182 9-14
DONS WILL PICK UP GROUND WITH A WIN: With a win Monday, USF will gain ground in the WCC race on either San Diego or St. Mary's who face each other on Monday. USF plays Santa Clara (the eighth place team) Monday and Portland (the sixth place squad) next Friday before facing Gonzaga in the regular season finale.
DONS IMPRESSIVE IN HOME WIN OVER SAN DIEGO: USF played one of its best games of the year in defeating San Diego 87-71 on February 13th. Alan Wiggins, Jr. scored a career high 25 points (and pulled 10 rebounds) to pace USF, with Jason Wallace-Carter (7-8 floor) and Jerome Gumbs scoring 14 each, Armondo Surratt adding 13 and Drew Shiller adding 11. The Dons shot 56.4% on the night (their best percentage of the season), including 61.5% in the second half in which USF outscored the Toreros 47-34. The Dons opened the second half with a 14-0 run over the first six minutes taking a 54-37 advantage and built the lead to as much as 25 (85-60).
SPLITSVILLE?: So far USF has split every two-game weekend of WCC play winning once and losing once. The Dons won their other single game contest, topping St. Mary's 53-52 on January 16th.
SHOOT YOUR WAY OUT OF IT: The Dons are 6-5 in league but with a little bit better shooting have a much better mark. In fact, since league play opened USF is shooting just 42.5% from the floor (fifth WCC), 31.9% from three-point (7th WCC) and last in free-throw percentage (66.8%).
In league play, Jerome Gumbs is the only Don at 50% floor (50.0%) Jason Wallace-Carter (44.3% FG league) shot 55.8% in preconference play while Alan Wiggins, Jr. (43.9% FG league) shot 54.9% before WCC began.
TURNOVERS A DONS' ADVANTAGE: In WCC play, the Dons have by far the best turnover margin (+2.7) forcing 17.2 turnovers per contest while committing just 14.5. The next highest margin is LMU's + 2.0. On the opposite side, USF is last in free-throw percentage (66.8%).
HOME-AWAY:
USF is 2-9 away from Memorial Gymnasium and 8-5 at home.
