Bizarre as it seems, a season that appears destined to be historically bad for the USF men's basketball team could have a historically good subplot.
Brian Gregory's club, winless in American Athletic Conference play, is on pace to be USF's best free-throw shooting team ever.
The Bulls (7-13, 0-7), who went 14-of-16 from the stripe in Saturday's 71-69 loss to UCF, are shooting 74.4 percent (247-of-332) from the line this season. The program record for free-throw percentage is 73.8, set by the 1978-79 team coached by Chip Conner.
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Nationally, USF is tied for 64th in the category. No Bulls team has shot better than 70 percent from the free-throw line for a season since Stan Heath's 2012 NCAA Tournament squad (70.5).
The Bulls sank their first 11 free throws Saturday night, and have shot 80 percent or better from the stripe six times this season. PG Stephan Jiggetts leads the team in free-throw percentage (87.5, 35-of-40), followed closely by fellow graduate transfer Terrence Samuel (86.4, 57-of-66).