USF WBB Announces 2020-21 Slate

The Bulls look forward to home battles with defending National Champion Baylor and Mississippi State; Home-and-home dates with all AAC teams, including UCF on Feb. 7 and March 2. 

TAMPA (Nov. 20, 2020) – University of South Florida head women’s basketball coach Jose Fernandez announced Friday the Bull’s schedule for the 2020-21 season presented by Tampa General Hospital. The slate includes home-and-home dates with all 10 American Athletic Conference opponents, and home nonconference tilts against defending national champion Baylor and Mississippi State.

Click HERE for complete 2020-21 schedule.

Fernandez has never shied away from facing some of the top programs in the country during the Bulls’ nonconference schedule, and this season will be no different, even with a limited slate due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The four-game nonconference ledger, all played at home, includes national powers Baylor and Mississippi State visiting the Yuengling Center, with the game against the Bulldogs being played as part of the AAC/SEC Challenge. The Bulls still have the potential of adding one additional nonconference game. There will be no general fan attendance in the Yuengling Center for games during nonconference play set to run through at least Dec. 15. A limited number of players and coaches family members will be able to attend via pass list entry. USF Athletics will review fan attendance policies prior to the start of American Athletic Conference (AAC) play in December and as the season progresses.

“It’s been a challenging scheduling year to say the least,” said Fernandez. “Going to 20 league games has made it difficult, and losing out on our multiple-team event (Battle 4 Atlantis) didn’t help as well. We are still in need of one more nonconference game, but with the need for strength of schedule/RPI parameters on our part, it has not come to fruition. We are playing two in-state Atlantic Sun programs and two top 10 programs in the country.”

USF opens the season on Sat., Nov. 28 against Jacksonville (4 p.m.) before Baylor and Mississippi State come to Tampa on Tues., Dec. 1 (7 p.m.) and Sat., Dec. 5 (7 p.m.), respectively.

The Lady Bears, the defending national champions after winning the 2019 Women’s Final Four at Amalie Arena in Tampa, recorded a 28-2 record last season and a 17-1 record in the Big 12. Baylor earned the conference’s regular season title and was ranked No. 3 in both the Associated Press (AP) and WBCA Coaches polls when the pandemic led to the shutdown of the season. The Lady Bears enter the 2020-21 campaign ranked No. 4 in the preseason AP poll. USF and Baylor met last season in Waco, Texas, with the Lady Bears clawing out a hard-fought 58-46 victory.

The Bulldogs finished the 2019-20 campaign 27-6 and 13-3 in the Southeastern Conference, good enough for second place in the conference. Mississippi State fell short in the SEC title game to No. 1 ranked South Carolina, 76-62. Like Baylor, the Bulls faced off against the Bulldogs last season, dropping a 86-61 decision at the Duel in the Desert in Las Vegas. Mississippi State comes into the 2020-21 season ranked No. 6 in the AP preseason poll.

USF will close out its nonconference schedule against its second in-state foe when Stetson comes to the Yuengling Center on Sun., Dec. 13 at 2 p.m.

With the loss of UConn to the BIG EAST Conference, The American made changes in its conference scheduling, which will see all teams playing each other twice for a total of 20 league games.

Highlighting the 2020-21 conference schedule will be the annual War on I-4 series against rival UCF. The two schools will meet first in Orlando on Sun., Feb. 7, before USF closes out the regular season at home against the Knights on Tues., March 2. 

The Bulls will open conference play with four AAC games before the 2021 calendar year begins, with three away from the Yuengling Center. USF opens its conference schedule at Memphis on Wed., Dec. 16 before returning the Yuengling Center on Sat., Dec. 19 for its league home opener against Houston. The Bulls close out the four-game stretch with road tests at Cincinnati (Tues., Dec. 22) and at Tulsa (Wed., Dec. 30).

USF starts off 2021 playing three of the next four games at home, with ECU (Sat., Jan. 2), Wichita State (Wed., Jan. 6), and Memphis on (Sun., Jan. 17) coming to Tampa. The lone road tilt during that stretch will be at Tulane on Wed., Jan. 13. The Bulls close out the month of January with road games at Wichita State (Wed., Jan. 20) and ECU (Sat., Jan. 23), and home games against Temple (Wed., Jan. 27) and Cincinnati (Sat., Jan. 30).

Four of USF’s seven games in February will be on the road, starting with two straight – at SMU on Wed., Feb. 3 and at UCF on Sun., Feb. 7. The Bulls will then enjoy their longest homestand of the of the season – three games – facing Tulsa (Sat., Feb. 13), SMU (Wed., Feb. 17) and Tulane (Sat., Feb. 20) in the Yuengling Center, before finishing up the month at Temple and Houston on Wed., Feb. 24 and Sat., Feb. 27, respectively. The Bulls then welcome UCF to the Yuengling Center for the regular season finale on Tues., March 2.

For the first time in its eight-year league history, the 2021 American Athletic Conference Women’s Basketball Championship will be held at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. The 2021 women’s tournament will take place March 8-11 in conjunction with the men’s championship, which is set for March 11-14 at Dickies Arena.

The Bulls return four starters – including preseason All-AAC selections Elene Tsineke (Thessaloniki, Greece) and Elisa Pinzan (Murano, Italy) – from a team that went 19-13 overall and 10-6 in conference play last year and advanced to the AAC Tournament semifinals for the seventh straight season.

All USF games not televised nationally on the ESPN networks will be carried live on ESPN+.

The American Athletic Conference and ESPN begin a new 12-year television rights agreement this season that will see nearly all men’s and women’s games available for viewing either via traditional linear networks or digitally through ESPN+. Subscriptions for the ESPN+ app are $5.99 monthly or $49.99 annually and can be packaged with Hulu and Disney+ streaming services.

A step-by-step guide for subscribing to ESPN+ is located here.

About USF Women’s Basketball

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USF notched its ninth consecutive 19-win season and was poised for its ninth straight postseason appearance in 2019-20 before the COVID-19 pandemic forced the end of the college basketball season. The Bulls celebrated two all-conference honorees in Elena Tsineke and Elisa Pinzan. Tsineke was named the American Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year, in addition to The American All-Freshman Team and Third Team All-Conference; while Pinzan was named a Third Team All-Conference selection.

USF has made 15 postseason tournament appearances and had six NCAA Tournament berths in head coach Jose Fernandez’s 20 seasons. The all-time winningest coach in program history, Fernandez has guided USF to nine 20-win seasons, two WNIT final four appearances, the 2009 WNIT championship and won more than 350 games.

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