The Tulane Green Wave basketball team are back to their inconsistent ways.
The good news? The Tulane Green Wave men's basketball team has made it past a big game against the league's top team in the South Florida Bulls.
The bad news? The Green Wave got blown out for the second game in a row.
Tulane fell behind early and never found a way to rally back completely, ultimately falling to the Bulls by a score of 90-62. With the win, South Florida were named the American Conference Regular Season Champions.
After falling behind 49-38 heading into the locker room at halftime, the Green Wave somehow put together an even worse showing in the second half; the visiting squad was outscored 41-24 and lacked any success on any side of the ball.
Curtis Williams Jr. had one of his best outings of the year with 27 points in 38 minutes of action. He went 5-for-12 from the three-point line, added six rebounds and finished tied for the team-high with three assists.
Only two other players managed to score in double figures for Tulane. Rowan Brumbaugh added 11 points, a team-high seven rebounds and two assists for the program, but struggled more than usual from the three-point line. Scotty Middleton, who has played with a new fire under him since being moved from the starting lineup, added 11 points and six rebounds.
Asher Woods added four points and Tyler Ringgold added one point to round out scoring from the starting lineup. Luke Rasmussen earned the start at guard, but he added no points and only played for six minutes in the contest. In comparison, USF had four starters score in double figures.
Aside from Middleton, only three players scored off the bench for the Green Wave. Percy Daniels added four points, four boards and three assists in 21 minutes, while KJ Greene and Jojo Moore had two points apiece.
As a whole, Tulane shot just 36.7-percent on the day and 28.6-percent from three. The team was once again outmanned on the glass, with the Bulls grabbing 41 total rebounds for Tulane's 29. Alarmingly, the Green Wave also committed 18 turnovers to just 13 assists and were unable to play any effective defense in the paint -- South Florida had 42 points in the paint on the day.
While the Green Wave does appear to hold an American Conference tournament spot -- as the team still holds the tiebreaker over the Rice Owls, who currently sit in 11th place in the league -- the team needs to do some quick soul-searching. Tulane has slipped to seventh in conference standings with two games remaining. The Green Wave's remaining contests will come on the road against the Temple Owls and at home against the Memphis Tigers -- both teams that are below Tulane in league standings. However, if the boys from Uptown play like they have for the past week, then things could get pretty ugly, fast.
The Green Wave's final road game of the season comes against Temple on Thursday, March 5th. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. CT.