USF shocks Georgetown for Senior Night victory

The USF women’s basketball team sent its seniors out in style with a 60-55 victory over the No. 17 Georgetown Hoyas on Monday night.

In one of the biggest wins in program history, senior Forward Leondra Doomes-Stephens celebrated Senior Night with a fantastic performance, picking up a career-high 25 points and 13 rebounds.

“(Leondra) was great tonight,” coach Jose Fernandez said, “she just had a fantastic performance.”

The Bulls (12-18, 3-13) played hard and fairly well in the first half, with the only glaring hole in their game being their seven turnovers, as opposed to only three by the Hoyas (21-9, 9-7). Despite turnovers, an 8 to 13 difference in free throws attempted, and a 22 to 20 rebounding edge for the Hoyas, the Bulls managed to stay within five at the half, mainly due to their advantage in overall shooting percentage, (35 percent to 29 percent), and a fairly hot start from three-point range, hitting four of their first 12.

Three pointers remained at the forefront of the Bulls attack as they hit five threes in the first eight minutes of the second half.

The Bulls won largely due to strong second half efforts by Doomes-Stephens and guard Andrea Smith, who contributed 24 points.

Overall, the Bulls finished 10 of 24 from behind the arc, a major factor in their victory.

“I think we did a really good job making the extra pass,” Fernandez said, “and that helped us get open threes.”

USF’s only win over an opponent ranked higher than Georgetown was a victory over then-No. 11 DePaul in 2005. It was USF’s first upset over a ranked team in three seasons.

With the regular season now complete, the Bulls will travel to the Big East tournament as the No.13 seed. They will open against Pittsburgh on Friday.