Hot Shooting Bulls Sink Women?s Basketball, 97-53

TAMPA, Fla. – University of South Florida shot a blistering 54 percent from the field on its way to a 97-53 victory over the UNC Asheville women's basketball team on Saturday afternoon at the Sun Dome.

Asheville falls to 0-3 on the year, while the 25^th ranked Bulls improve to 3-1 on the season.

“We knew going in that USF would be a tough test for our team because they are so good in transition and on the offensive glass,” said head coach Brenda Mock Kirkpatrick. “Our focus was to make it a possession game and I think that the run they made in the first half really affected the mentality of our kids and it took us too long to recover from that.”

Jeannie Buckner and KJ Weaver scored the opening two buckets of the game for Asheville off of offensive rebounds allowing the Bulldogs to get out to a solid start through the first media timeout. Out of the timeout, Chatori Major knocked down a pair of mid-range jump shots to stop a 9-0 run from the Bulls and cut the lead to 15-8.

From that point, South Florida opened up a 21 point lead, fueled by 10 straight points from Tamara Taylor who came off the bench to score 14 points, all in the first half. Courtney Williams scored five of her game-high 18 points during the run.

USF jumped out to a 49-22 halftime lead on 18-of-36 shooting from the field and added to that with a 59.3 field goal percentage in the second half.

“I thought that we made some good adjustments at halftime and came out and threw some punches to open the half, but we couldn't get shots to fall, and we allowed them too many points in transition and too many second chance points,” added Mock Kirkpatrick.

The Bulldogs opened the first nine minutes of the second half going basket-for-basket with South Florida. During that stretch, Weaver and Shonese Jones each scored five of their team-high nine points. However, a 17-5 run over the next five minutes extended the Bulls lead to 82-46.

For the game, the Bulls had a commanding 34-9 advantage on points off turnovers by forcing Asheville into 21 turnovers for the game. South Florida also dominated points in the paint with a 44-26 advantage. Asheville improved its efforts on the glass, despite being outrebounded 44-38. South Florida's Alisia Jenkins led all players with 11 rebounds, while Buckner had a team-high six rebounds for the Bulldogs.

Asheville will return to action on Monday, November 24, when they host Barton College at 7:00 p.m. in Kimmel Arena.