Bryan Hodgson was gobsmacked by messages when he accepted the South Florida head coaching job in March 2025. But one stuck with him more than the others. It didn’t come from a family member, a friend in the industry, or a former player. Instead, it came from a student at USF.
“Congratulations, but I hope you know you’ve got some big f******* shoes to fill,” it read.
The pair of shoes the student was referring to is those of the late Amir Abdur-Rahim, who tragically passed away shortly before the 2024-25
season, which would’ve been his second as South Florida’s coach. At just 43 years old, he was a rising star in coaching and had led the Bulls to an American Conference championship in his first year.
From the outset, Hodgson understood the weight of the role. It’s why he decided to honor Abdur-Rahim by adopting his “TRUTH” acronym: trust, responsibility, unity, toughness, and humility. The core values of the program. Hodgson says that the values are very similar to the GTTL: gratitude, truth, toughness, and loyalty, an acronym that he used at Arkansas State, but it serves as a “constant reminder” to live as Abdur-Rahim did.
“There was no fraud or fakeness with him,” Hodgson told Mid-Major Madness. “He actually lived those core values, and anybody that knew him would tell you that.”
Now, just like Abdur-Rahim did, Hodgson has South Florida in the mix for an American Conference championship in year one. The Bulls stand alone at 9-3 in first place in the league on a three-game winning streak which includes finishing the season sweep of Tulsa and winning on the road against Wichita State. With six games to play in the season, USF is in the driver’s seat for the one seed, but still has to navigate the path to get there.
Two years on from Abdur-Rahim bringing First Team All-ASUN guard Chris Youngblood with him to South Florida, where he won Co-AAC Player of the Year, Hodgson’s team is also led by a player who played for him last year. Izaiyah Nelson embodies everything that Hodgson’s program is about. He’s an uber athlete that impacts the game at a high level around the rim on both ends.
But it took a lot of development for him to get to this point. Nelson was one of the players that Hodgson inherited when he took the job at Arkansas State before Nelson’s sophomore year. Today, Nelson is unrecognizable.
“To be honest with you, when we got him, he stunk,” Hodgson said. “I mean, he was awful. We all thought we’d be moving on from him at the end of the year, and then he just fell in love with the work. No one had ever really taught him the work that it takes to be good and showed him how good he could be if he put in the work.”
Now? He’s the clear favorite for American Conference Player of the Year and has had 22 NBA teams come through Tampa to watch him play.
With Nelson leading the way, South Florida has the top two-point defense in the conference, as well as the best average two-point distance on both ends of the floor in league play. It shows that the Bulls are able to get to the rim with their athleticism, and keep teams away from the rim as well.
“We look for high-level athletes,” Hodgson said of building the roster. “We play at such a fast pace, so you’ve gotta be an athlete to play for us.”
Hodgson also says that he and his staff relied heavily on analytics, looking at on-off ratings and how players impacted winning at their previous schools on both sides of the ball.
He built around retaining now-sophomore point guard CJ Brown from last year’s Bulls team, and bringing in Nelson along with sharpshooter Joseph Pinion from Arkansas State.
“Every transfer we took was an analytical decision,” he said. “We built out from there with guys that we really thought could completement that group really well.”
While on the surface, it’s a similar team build to his roster at Arkansas State last season, there’s a key difference. Five players attempted 100 or more threes for the Red Wolves last year, and two more attempted more than 65. They had a depth of shooters around Nelson. With USF, only Pinion and Wes Enis have attempted more than 51 triples, and they’ve each attempted 200 already.
Hodgson said that he’d ideally have more shooters, but having two as good as Enis and Pinion is more than enough with this roster. Nelson, Brown, and Josh Omojafo are all elite at getting to the foul line, so they each open up the floor for what each other do well.
But what can elevate the Bulls even further is Pinion’s evolution as a defender.
“Joe has been our best defensive leverage on our team over the last four or five games,” Hodgson said. “Which is unheard of. Last year, he was our worst defender, and this year, in our biggest stretch, he’s been our best defender.”
The defense was a big area of concern for Hodgson after allowing 50 points in the first half to UTSA on February 4 and throughout the season, but in the most recent win over Wichita State, the Bulls allowed just 58 points.
It was a game played outside of South Florida’s comfort zone, at just 69 possessions, and the Shockers held the Bulls to 18 three-point attempts. But to find a way to win on the road, the first win of the season to come while scoring below a point per possession, is a step in the right direction for March.
“Guys have been able to scout you now,” Hodgson said. “They’ve seen you play 25 games, you’re playing teams for a second time, so they’re gonna know how to guard you. And so what do you do when they take something away? And I think what I’m most proud of is it seems like we have a different person off the bench show up for us on different nights.”
He credited Gavin Hightower’s performance against UTSA and Isaiah Jones coming through with offensive rebounds and strong defense against Wichita State.
With six games left in the season, Hodgson thinks back to that message he read when he accepted the job. He wonders what that student thinks of the job he’s done. Hodgson says that he hasn’t connected with that student at any point, but adds that he’s going to.
The shoes aren’t filled. They never will be. But Hodgson is glad to be walking that path.
“I feel like Coach Amir even had a hand in me getting this job,” he said. “I think that he would’ve been proud that I was able to follow him. We had a relationship, probably not as close as a lot of people were with him, but we did have a relationship. And I think that he knew me enough to know that I valued a lot of the same things he did.”
“So as much as there was pressure, it’s also a privilege.”
