The University of South Florida men’s basketball team has earned two regular-season championships in the last three seasons.
Photo by Alex Felski | The Crow’s Nest
By Dominic Feo
During Bryan Hodgson’s initial summer practice as head coach of the University of South Florida men’s basketball team on June 7, 2025, he made a statement to a roster with just two returning players.
“The games that we’re going to win in March, you don’t win those games in March, you win them today,” he told the team.
Hodgson put his new team through a rigorous offseason regimen, including a training session with Navy SEALs. Practice appears to have paid off, as USF finished the regular season with the best record in the American Conference (15-3) following an undefeated record in March.
The team’s conference success automatically gives USF a spot in the conference tournament’s semifinal round.
Photo by Alex Felski | The Crow’s Nest
USF secured a share of the American Conference Championship’s top seed on March 1, defeating Tulane University 90-62, and became the outright regular season champions with a 96-89 win over Memphis University four days later.
The Bulls regular season finale against Charlotte on March 8 then became a celebration of the team’s second conference regular-season championship in three years. A defensively dominant 83-60 win made it even sweeter when green and white confetti showered the players and coaches at the Yuengling Center as they cut down the nets.
“I’ll be lying to you if I told you it wasn’t in the back of my head, like, gosh, if something happens and we dropped this one, I’m not gonna be standing on a stage while confetti is falling,” Hodgson said during the postgame press conference. “I don’t have that in my DNA.”
Success has become routine for Hodgson, who inherited a 20-loss team at Arkansas State in 2022 and won over 20 games in each of his two seasons with the Red Wolves. Now coaching USF to a 23-8 overall record, Hodgson saw something he had never seen in Jonesboro.
Teams normally hoist championship banners at the beginning of next season, but Rob Higgins, CEO of Athletics, made an unprecedented decision to raise this year’s banner right after the game.
“Nowadays, guys don’t get to see their banners. You win one, then these people transfer, they graduate and they go off to play professional basketball, and it takes years for them to come back and see that,” Hodgson said. “We hung a banner last year at Arkansas State. We won the Sun Belt. I’ve never seen it.”
USF achieved that banner through an identity prophesied by Hodgson during his introductory press conference on March 28, 2025.
“I have never been a part of a coaching staff at the Division One level that has not finished in the top 50 in the country in offensive tempo,” Hodgson said. “We will be aggressive, efficient, and structured while allowing good players to make plays without overthinking their every move.”
USF finished the regular season 50th nationally in offensive tempo, but good players did not just make plays — they broke records — and no one broke more than Bulls senior center Izaiyah Nelson.
Following coach Hodgson from ASU to Tampa Bay, Nelson ended his first regular season in the American Conference as the leader in rebounds per game (9.8) and field goal percentage (56.4). Nelson was also a defensive anchor, being the only player in the conference to average over 1.4 steals and blocks per game.
Photo by Gabriel Ballester-Rivera | The Crow’s Nest
He played a massive role in USF finishing the season with the highest defensive efficiency rating in the conference, meaning if a team had a hundred attempts to score on any team in the conference, they would score the least against USF.
Nelson’s two-way excellence was recognized by voters as the unanimous American Conference Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year.
No other player in the conference’s history has won all three in a season. Nelson also earned a spot on the All-Conference first team.
Joining him were guards Wes Enis and Joesph Pinion, who were awarded spots on the conference’s first and third teams, respectively.
Photo by Alex Felski | The Crow’s Nest
The pair made history of their own, becoming the 12th duo in the history of D1 college basketball to both make 100 or more three-pointers in a season.
“Joe was a Top 100 [nationally] kid and went to University of Arkansas, his hometown, dream school, and didn’t really see the floor, and that can kill a young man’s confidence,” Hodgson said. “He was phenomenal for [me] last year at Arkansas State and been even better for us this year. Wes Enis goes and plays Division Two basketball. Heck, he’s been more productive here than he was there.”
They accounted for two-thirds of the Bulls’ program-best 300 made shots from behind the arc this season.
However, every accolade would be overshadowed by a conference tournament championship that would automatically give USF a bid for its first NCAA March Madness Tournament appearance since the 2011-12 season.
When the Bulls rematch against Charlotte at Birmingham, Ala., on March 14, it will be a reminder of the 2023-24 squad, coached by the late Amir Abdur-Rahim.
“I just want to talk about how special [this] is and talk about what coach Amir means to us in this program,” Hodgson said. “People may not understand, but this really wasn’t possible without coach and what he did here. Heck, I’m going to be transparent with you. I don’t know if I [would have taken] this job had I not seen what he did.”
The game will be broadcast at 3 p.m. on ESPN2.
