After upsetting Villanova in the opening round of last season’s Big East Championship tournament, the Bulls will have to contend with Jay Wright’s Wildcats twice in the upcoming regular season.
All 16 Big East basketball schools are required to play the other member institutions once in the regular season. However, to complete an 18-game league slate, each school is paired up with three others that will play head-to-head twice.
The Big East announced this week that USF will play Villanova, Pittsburgh and Providence twice next season in home-and-home series.
USF went 0-2 against Pittsburgh last year, briefly holding leads in both games. Pittsburgh ended the regular season atop the Big East standings and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The Bulls went 1-1 against Providence, winning 79-72 at home and losing 68-63 in Rhode Island.
USF lost to then-No. 7 Villanova 83-71 in the Sun Dome before beating the unranked Wildcats 70-69 on a last-second layup by dismissed point guard Anthony Crater in the conference tournament.
The selection of pairings is not weighted with a system wherein the best teams are afforded the luxury of playing the weakest teams in the league twice, and is completely random.
Where USF will play its home games next season is still undecided, as the Sun Dome is expected to be unavailable due to renovations.
