Four USF sports teams combine for Sunday sweep

For at least a day, that improbable March Madness sensation percolating in the Bulls men's basketball program spread wildly.

Throughout the whole darn athletic program.

Four USF teams recorded victories in a veritable Sunday sweep for the Bulls.

We'll start with Brian Gregory's team (10-21, 3-15), which topped SMU, 65-54, at home on senior day to record its second American Athletic Conference win in four days. The triumph assured USF of its first season of double-digit wins since 2013-14, Stan Heath's final season as coach.

USF, which embarrassed Memphis by 24 on the road Thursday night, faces the Tigers again Thursday at 2 p.m. in the AAC tournament opener in Orlando.

Related: USF men stun Memphis to end 8-game skid

"I say all the time to our guys, the No. 1 indicator of success is grit," Gregory told reporters afterward. "The ability to work hard through tough times and adversity, and our guys have that and I think it's starting to show."

Meantime, the 20th-ranked Bulls women (25-6) watched veterans Maria Jespersen (23 points) and Kitija Laksa (21) combine to equal East Carolina's scoring total in an 80-44 romp of the Pirates in the AAC women's quarterfinals in Uncasville, Conn. The Bulls face UCF in Monday's 4:30 p.m. semifinals, to be televised on ESPNU.

Back on campus, the baseball team (7-5) collected a season-high 17 hits in a 13-6 romp of Columbia to take the four-game series; and the Bulls women's tennis team rolled past Western Michigan, 6-1.

Tack on the softball team's two wins Saturday (against Central Michigan and Penn), and every USF team that competed this weekend won.

To which we say, utter madness.