Dons Open Play At WCC Tournament Friday (8 p.m.) vs. Portland

March 1, 2005

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San Francisco, CA- USF (15-12, 6-8 WCC) will open West Coast Conference tournament play on Friday night when the face #7 seed Portland at 8:00 p.m. (ESPN U.) at Santa Clara's Leavey Center. The Dons are in the lower half of the bracket that would see them have to play through Portland, host Santa Clara and St. Mary's to get to the league finals. The lower half of the bracket will play the last game of the evening each night, with each game televised.

The Dons have had success in the regular season against Portland and Santa Clara, going 2-0 against each, but lost both contests to St. Mary's. When you look closer at the games against these three opponents, there was not much margin of error in any of these six games.

COX HONORED AGAIN: USF senior guard John Cox has been named all-West Coast Conference it was announced Monday, February 28th. Cox, who was named all-WCC in his junior season of 2002-03 sat out last season as a redshirt after a knee injury. Cox led the WCC in scoring in both overall (20.4 - 19th NCAA at start of week) and league (19.9) play. Cox is currently eleventh in all-time career scoring at USF and is the son of former all-WCC USF guard Chubby Cox.

RILEY HONORABLE MENTION: For the second straight season, senior forward Tyrone Riley barely missed the all-WCC team and was named all-WCC honorable mention. Riley had a sensational senior season, which he culminated with a solid February. Over the past seven games last month, the Watts native averaged 19.1 points per game and 10.4 rebounds and recorded personal bests with 24 points at Portland and 20 rebounds against Loyola Marymount.

USF IS 2-1 VS. TOP 25: USF is 2-1 in games vs. the AP top 25. The Dons defeated #19 Pacific 67-64 in Stockton on December 18th, UOP's last loss, and their only loss in Stockton. USF also beat Gonzaga at USF when they were ranked #11, 73-70, which is also Gonzaga's last loss. USF lost last Saturday at Gonzaga 75-73 on February 19th.

USF HAS BEATEN LEAGUE FOUR LEAGUE CHAMPIONS: USF has beaten four conference champions this season, Gonzaga (WCC), Pacific (Big West), Penn (Ivy) and St. Joseph's (Atlantic-10).

Media: All of USF's WCC tournament games will be carried live on KYCY, 1550 AM. The first and second round games will also be televised on ESPNU and the semi-final and championship games on ESPN.

USF THE MOST EXCITING TEAM IN SPORTS? Do you like close games?: With the exception of the two Pepperdine games and Feb. 9 game at USD, USF WCC games have been real nail biters. Here is a sampling: 1/7 at LMU: Trailing by one Andre Hazel's lay-up attempted is deflected by center Mathew Knight with :05 left and USF trailing by one. USF loses 68-65. 1/9 at Pepperdine: USF trails by just three with 2:43 left and has three possessions to get closer but eventually falls 64-57 1/15 San Diego: USF and USD go into overtime after failing to score in last 1:29. The Dons trail by four in overtime before taking control. USD has a three-point attempt to tie the score by Brandon Gay miss with :10 left. USF wins 87-82. 1/20 #11 Gonzaga: USF looks like they will runaway from the Zags but #11 still has some fight left. Gonzaga takes a 19 point lead down to three but a buzzer beating three to tie by Derek Raivio is off mark. USF wins 73-70. 1/22 Portland: The Pilots erase a USF second half lead and it takes a gutty three by Tyrone Riley with :26 left and a late steal by Jason Gaines to get USF to OT where Riley takes over and the Dons win 74-70. 1/27 at Santa Clara: USF sophomore Alan Wiggins breaks a tie with a baseline jumper with less than a second left to give USF a 62-60 win vs. Santa Clara. 1/20 at St. Mary's: In the game where WCC officials incorrectly used a TV replay to check a shot clock violation vs. USF, Tyrone Riley's short shot to give the Dons the lead with 18 seconds left is short and St. Mary's outlasts USF 68-64 2/5 Loyola Marymount: USF leads all the way until LMU takes a lead for the first time with 18 seconds left. USF has shots to go ahead by John Cox at :05 and a layup by Tyrone Riley miss with :01 left and loses 50-49. 2/17 at Portland: USF builds a big halftime lead of 16 points but then goes cold offensively letting the Pilots back in the game. Portland leads after scoring with :41 left but Tyrone Riley banks in a three with :18 left to give USF the lead. USF twice gets steals at end of the game and wins by two after a Cox free-throw. 2/19 at Gonzaga: USF fights back from a double digit deficit to take the lead with 1:10 left on an Ingerson trey. GU makes two free-throws and USF one to have the game tied at 73-all. Gonzaga's Adam Morrison drills a jumper in the last second and John Cox's equalizer is just a fraction late to send the game to ot. 2/24 St. Mary's: USF leads late, has shots to win at the end of regulation and the first overtime to win it, but eventually falls in triple overtime to St. Mary's. USF makes just 5-10 free-throws in overtime sealing its fate. Hazel has a chance to make a lay-up to win it at the end of OT1, but it rolls off the rim. 2/26 Santa Clara: What looked like a runaway earlier became very tight when Santa Clara closed a USF 17-point lead to 2 late in the game. USF built the lead back to three and a late three-pointer at the buzzer by Santa Clara bounced harmlessly off the rim.

WCC Holds Steady At No. 7 In Latest RPI Report The WCC is entering its conference tournament with its highest ever conference RPI ranking in men's hoops. For the seventh consecutive week, the WCC is listed as the No. 7 rated conference in the Collegiate Basketball News RPI rankings. The WCC is listed ahead of other highly regarded conferences such as Conference-USA, the Missouri Valley Conference, the Mountain West Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference. In fact, the only conferences listed ahead of the WCC are the six "BCS" conferences with the ACC leading the way, followed, by the Pac-10, the Big 12, the Big East, the SEC and the Big Ten.

Earlier, seven in a row: USF went undefeated for a month from Dec. 2-Dec. 31. The streak ended at Texas Tech. The Dons won five in a row last season, but had not won seven in a row since the 1999-2000 year when they won 12 straight after dropping their opener in the preseason NIT at Maryland.

During the seven-game win streak USF had outscored its opponents 77.1 to 62.3, outshot them 45.0% to 40.7% and has a +7.4 turnover margin, making just 12.1 turnovers per game. Three players, John Cox (21.0), Tyrone Riley (16.0) and Jerome Gumbs (11.1) were averaging in double figures over the seven contests. John Cox moves to 11th in scoring: Senior All-WCC guard John Cox became the 27th player in USF history to score his 1,000th career point on December 1st in USF's 65-55 loss at Wichita State. Cox's baseline three-pointer with 18:02 remaining in the first half gave Cox 1,001 points. He now has 1,470 and is 11th on the all-time USF career scoring list. He passed Pete Cross (1,415) on February 22nd. He needs 53 points to tie Phil Smith for 11th place . He has scored 551 points this season, surpassing his personal best (445) in 2002-03 (28 games) when he was also named all-WCC. (see top-20 list at end of release)

Cox and Riley rank in WCC key categories: John Cox is first in the West Coast Conference in scoring with 20.4 points per contest (ranked 19th in NCAA at start of the weekend) and finished tied for the lead in scoring during league play at 19.9. He also leads the WCC in three-pointers made with 2.6 made per contest. Riley is second in the WCC in rebounding with 8.9 per game.

Evans earns win #145: USF is led by new head coach Jessie Evans, who came over from Louisiana Lafayette this summer. The Santa Clara win last Thursday was the 145th in his career. He led Louisiana to a 132-81 record in seven seasons (and four postseason berths) after coming over from Arizona, where he was an assistant to Lute Olson. He took UL to the NCAA tournament last season. His team led the Sun Belt in scoring last season with 77.0 points per game. USF was last in the WCC in scoring last season with 65.0 ppg. Evans took over the program from Phil Mathews (139-123 in eight years), who is now head coach at San Bernardino Valley College.

More new staff: USF has a new alignment on the bench besides Evans. Next to Evans is former Casper College head coach Bill Johnson, who previously served as an assistant at Columbia (to Armond Hill) and Nebraska (to Danny Nee). Johnson is a graduate of Nebraska (1988) where he was a two-year letterwinner. Promoted on the USF staff were Anwar McQueen (Cal, 1997) and former Administrative Assistant Philippe Doherty (UC Davis, 1999). Joining the USF staff is Coach Evans' son Jarret, a former player at Louisiana-Lafayette (2002) and Director of Basketball Operations.

Dons Radio: USF games are broadcast live on KYCY (1550 AM) and be streamed live on USFDons.com. Saturday, play-by-play man Pat Olson will be broadcasting his 401st USF men's basketball game on the radio. In addition several games were be broadcast nationally on Sirius Satellite radio. Pat Olson is in his 14th season as the voice of USF basketball. He will be joined during USF home and local games by former USF head coach Jim Brovelli. In addition to streaming the audio this season, USF streamed video of non-televised home games which is still available archived. KYCY also carried the weekly "Jessie Evans Show" every Monday night at 8:00 p.m. live from the Kezar Pub in San Francisco.

FREE-THROWS NOT FREE: USF has shot less free-throws in nine of the 14 WCC contests than their opponents after shooting less in just six of 14 non-conference games. In nonconference play, USF attempted 295 fts (22.7) to their opponents 272 (20.9), but in conference USF shot just 259 ft's (18.5) compared to 317 (22.6) for opponents. Five times during WCC play (at SCU, Pep-Home, and two of the last four contests (@USD, @PORT & @GU) USF has shot at least 10 less free-throws than its opponent.

USF has also struggled to make its free throws in league play making just 67.6% (7th), which has cost USF a few of the close games they have lost. Against St. Mary's USF missed four straight when up by one point in overtime.