{"id":191601,"date":"2026-03-14T16:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T16:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/191601\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T16:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T16:32:10","slug":"usf-ends-regular-season-on-top-of-the-american-conference-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/191601\/","title":{"rendered":"USF ends regular season on top of the American Conference \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of South Florida men\u2019s basketball team has earned two regular-season championships in the last three seasons.<\/p>\n

Photo by Alex Felski | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

By Dominic Feo<\/p>\n

During\u00a0Bryan Hodgson\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0initial\u00a0summer practice as head coach of the University of South Florida men\u2019s basketball team on June 7, 2025, he made a statement to a roster with just two returning players.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe games that we\u2019re going to win in March, you don\u2019t win those games in March, you win them today,\u201d he told the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s conference success automatically gives USF a spot in the conference tournament\u2019s semifinal round.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Joesph Pinion during the University of South Florida\u2019s 90-62 win over Tulane University on March 1
Photo by Alex Felski | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

USF secured a share of the American Conference Championship\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bulls regular season finale against Charlotte on March 8 then became a celebration of the team\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be lying to you if I told you it wasn\u2019t in the back of my head, like, gosh, if something happens and we dropped this one, I\u2019m not\u00a0gonna\u00a0be standing on a stage while confetti is falling,\u201d Hodgson said during the postgame press conference. \u201cI\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have that in my DNA.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Success has become\u00a0routine\u00a0for Hodgson, who inherited a\u00a020-loss\u00a0team 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Teams normally hoist championship banners at the beginning of next season, but Rob Higgins, CEO of Athletics,\u00a0made an unprecedented decision to raise this year\u2019s banner right after the game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo by Alex Felski | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays, guys don\u2019t 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,\u201d Hodgson said. \u201cWe hung a banner last year at Arkansas State. We won the Sun Belt. I\u2019ve never seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n

USF achieved that banner through an identity prophesied by Hodgson during his introductory press conference on March 28, 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d Hodgson said. \u201cWe will be aggressive, efficient, and structured while allowing good players to make plays without overthinking their every move.\u201d<\/p>\n

USF finished the regular season 50th nationally in offensive tempo, but good players did not just make plays \u2014 they broke records \u2014 and no one broke more than Bulls senior center Izaiyah Nelson.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"Izaiyah Nelson during the University of South Florida\u2019s 90-62 win over Tulane University on March 1
Photo by Gabriel Ballester-Rivera | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nelson\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

No other player in the conference\u2019s history has won all three in a season. Nelson also earned a spot on the All-Conference first team.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Joining him were guards\u00a0Wes Enis<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Joesph Pinion<\/a>,\u00a0who were awarded spots on the conference\u2019s first and third\u00a0teams,\u00a0respectively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Wes Enis cutting down the net at the Yuengling Center following USF\u2019s 83-60 win against Charlotte
Photo by Alex Felski | The Crow\u2019s Nest<\/p>\n

The pair made history of their own, becoming the 12th duo in the history of D1 college basketball to both make\u00a0100 or more three-pointers in a season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe was a Top 100 [nationally] kid and went to University of Arkansas, his hometown, dream school, and didn\u2019t really see the floor, and that can kill a young man\u2019s confidence,\u201d Hodgson said. \u201cHe 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,\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0been more productive here than he was there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

They accounted for two-thirds of the Bulls\u2019 program-best 300 made shots from behind the arc this season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, every accolade\u00a0would 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the Bulls rematch against Charlotte at Birmingham, Ala., on March 14, it will be a reminder of the 2023-24\u00a0squad, coached by the late Amir Abdur-Rahim.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to talk about how special [this]\u00a0is and\u00a0talk about what coach Amir means to us in this program,\u201d Hodgson said.\u00a0\u201cPeople may not understand, but this really\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0possible without coach and what he did here. Heck,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0going to be transparent with you. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know if I [would have taken] this job had I not seen what he did.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The game will be broadcast at 3 p.m. on ESPN2.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 34 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\"More<\/a>
Written by: Dominic Feo<\/a> on March 14, 2026.
Last revised by: Alisha Durosier<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of South Florida men\u2019s basketball team has earned two regular-season championships in the last three seasons.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-191601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}