An outspoken opponent of March Madness selection criteria, USF coach Jose Fernandez has openly bemoaned the advanced metrics steeped in NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings that seem to marginalize his team’s daunting non-conference schedule.

But with one more victory, those metrics won’t matter.

“We’re 40 minutes away from going to the NCAA Tournament,” Fernandez said.

Despite a disastrous third quarter, the No. 3-seeded Bulls (22-10) still led wire to wire in a 58-48 victory against No. 2 North Texas in Tuesday night’s American Athletic Conference tournament semifinals in Fort Worth, Texas.

USF will earn an automatic NCAA bid — its fourth in five seasons — with a triumph in Wednesday night’s title game against No. 9-seeded Rice, which stunned No. 1 UTSA in Monday’s quarterfinals. Tipoff on ESPNU is set for 7 p.m.

If the Bulls can replicate Tuesday’s first half for 40 minutes, Sunday night’s women’s selection show will become must-see TV in Tampa.

Exerting more energy and crispness, the Bulls built a 12-point first-quarter lead and increased their advantage to 15 by halftime. USF’s defense forced 13 first-half turnovers and held the Mean Green to seven field goals in the first 20 minutes.

But faster than you can say March Madness, the momentum vanished. The Bulls managed only two field goals in the third quarter, finishing 2 of 13 from the floor as North Texas gradually chipped away at its deficit.

“They came at us,” Fernandez said. “I didn’t like the way we were playing east to west instead of getting downhill, getting down to the basket.”

The Mean Green trimmed their lead to one, 39-38, with a 7-0 spurt early in the fourth, capped by Ereauna Hardaway’s fast-break layup. That prompted Fernandez to call a timeout, leading to the game’s most decisive spurt.

Sammie Puisis’ difficult jumper in the paint sparked an 8-0 USF run that ended with Vittoria Blasigh’s pull-up 3-pointer.

“We’ve just got to answer, and we’ve got to respond. That’s what we talked about in the timeout, and they responded,” Fernandez said. “I go, ‘Listen man, we’ve just got to be loose. Let’s just play, but we need to attack them.’ I thought we were really stagnant in what we started to do.”

Blasigh (team-high 13 points), mildly criticized by her coach in the past for not shooting enough, then delivered a dagger of sorts with another 3-pointer — this one from the top of the key — with 1:40 to play, giving USF a 52-44 lead.

“It was amazing,” said Blasigh, a 5-foot-9 sophomore from Italy.

“We had the feeling that we had plenty of energy all the game. It doesn’t matter if they came back, we feel like we stuck together the whole game and that was the most important thing.”

Contact Joey Knight at jknight@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Bulls

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