You superstitious Bulls fans out there, should USF get its first-ever win at Louisville this weekend, can offer a small thanks to ESPN2 and a bartender in Orlando.

If you were watching "First Take" on ESPN2 on Thursday morning, you might have been surprised to see that ESPN.com's Jemele Hill, who covered USF occasionally as a columnist at the Orlando Sentinel, was sporting a USF tie, explaining at one point that she wanted to show her support for the Bulls this week.

How did this come about? Hill explained via e-mail that she was at the Romano's Macaroni Grill restaurant in the Orlando airport, awaiting her flight up to ESPN's Bristol, Conn., studios, when she got into a conversation with the bartender. Leandro Ribeiro, a 2007 USF graduate, told her he enjoyed her appearances on the show, and she made a comment about his USF tie. He made an unusual request, hoping to get some karma for the Bulls: Would Hill take his tie and wear it on air? To his surprise, she said she would, and to even greater surprise, he got a phone call Thursday morning.

"My friend called and said 'Your tie is on ESPN," said Ribeiro, who said he is friends with Bulls receiver Carlton Mitchell and his family and will attend Saturday's game at Louisville. "I was pretty shocked. It blew my mind. I just told her I'd give her the tie for a good cause. Anything to help the Bulls, right?"

Hill joked that she isn't that powerful when it comes to college football karma -- "clearly, he hasn't seen some of my predictions," she writes. We'll just warn her in advance that if the Bulls win Saturday, she'll have superstitious bartenders, waiters, total strangers approaching her with apparel from their school. Today, a USF tie; next week, a UTEP beanie ...

(special thanks to Mike Humes at ESPN for tracking down the screengrabs. outstanding work)