Head Coach: Dan Belluomini
Overall Record: 22-7    WCC Record: 11-5
All-WCC Team: None
Top Scorer: Quintin Dailey (13.6)    Top Rebounder:  Wallace Bryant (10.4)
USF Hall-of-Famers: Wallace Bryant

The 1979-80 Dons were all about balance as four players averaged double figures in scoring, yet no one scored more than 14 points per game. With Bill Cartwright gone to the NBA the Dons spread the ball around more evenly and won more than 20 games for the fifth straight season and took 11 of 16 games in West Coast Athletic Conference play.

USF opened the season with back to back victories in the Hawaii Islands over Hawaii Pacific and Hawaii Hilo averaging 102.5 points in the two wins. In fact, the Dons won their first nine games, before falling 65-61 to the Longhorns in Austin, Texas.

The Dons started WCAC league play with a win over the Chieftains in Seattle and at one point won eight straight games in league play sandwiched around a 78-66 loss to Notre Dame and head coach Digger Phelps at the Oakland Coliseum.

Newcomer Quintin Dailey paced the Dons in scoring at 13.6 per game, with Wallace Bryant (13.3), Billy Reid (11.7), Guy Williams (11.4) and John Hegwood (9.0) all making solid contributions. Bryant also proved to be a real stalwart on defense with 63 blocked shots.

Did You Know? Senior guard Billy Reid was taken in the NBA draft the previous June by the Indiana Pacers under the ‘junior eligibility’ rule. However, he elected to play out his senior season on the Hilltop. He later played two seasons in the NBA for the Golden State Warriors and was an assistant men’s basketball coach on the Hilltop for three seasons under Phil Mathews from 2001-04.

They Said It: “We were always able to depend on Bill Cartwright over the past couple of seasons, but this year our team was more balanced and had more depth. I think sometimes depth is a very overrated word, because you can only use five men at once. But, we did have many games with four or five players scoring in double figures,” USF head coach Dan Belluomini.