Pittsburgh (15-12) Faces South Florida (16-10)

Filed under Game Preview on February 18th, 2012

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You can bet that Petersen Events Center will be rocking on Sunday as South Florida visits Pittsburgh in a Big East battle. It gets started at 7:00 EST and you can catch it on ESPN 2.

Pittsburgh is in 13th place in the conference, South Florida is in 5th place. South Florida is ranked #56 in the RPI, so Pittsburgh has an opportunity to improve its 5-10 record against RPI Top 100 teams. The Panthers are 15-12 overall as well as 4-10 in the Big East. Meanwhile, the Bulls have a record of 16-10 and are 9-4 in the conference.

We think Pittsburgh has the advantage in this game. Pittsburgh has the home-court advantage coming in at 10-6 at home while South Florida is 3-9 away.

Pittsburgh has a statistical edge over South Florida in one category, scoring, where the Panthers outperform the Bulls, 69 pts/game to 61 pts/game.

Pittsburgh has seen South Florida already this season, and lost 63-51 on February 8th. Last season, the Panthers went 2-0 against the Bulls, with an average 14 point margin of victory. Over four years, Pittsburgh has gone 4-2 against South Florida, including 2-0 at home.

• Pittsburgh players are more experienced than South Florida players (13,318 minutes played vs 11,871 minutes played).
• We win when it counts, too. Pittsburgh has more NCAA Tournament wins over the last 10 years than South Florida (15 vs 0).
• We have a history of cultivating talent. Over the past 10 years Pittsburgh has had more players drafted by the NBA than South Florida (4 vs 2).
• At least you keep showing up. Pittsburgh has an average margin of victory of 15 over South Florida in 5 wins since 2001.

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