> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.bayareaexaminer.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # USF Men's Basketball Pre-Season Report 2023-2024, Part 1 - URL: https://www.bayareaexaminer.com/usf-mens-basketball-pre-season-report/ - Published: 2023-10-31T12:33:12.000Z - Updated: 2023-10-31T12:33:12.000Z - Description: The Foam Dome will have plenty of new players and new expectations this upcoming season in this multi part series looking at both the men's and women's program extensively before the season tips off - Author: Collin Sherwin - Tags: #Migrated-1792597384348, #Import 2026-10-21 15:44 The American Athletic Conference announced their preseason coaches poll and honorees leading into the 2023-2024 collegiate basketball season. For USF men’s and women’s basketball, the addition of six new teams in UAB, FAU, North Texas, UTSA, Charlotte, and Rice coming into the fold replacing the departing UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati means there’s plenty of room for parity within the AAC. [Subscribe](#/portal/signup) In this three part series for each program, we’ll take a look at each teams’ staff and roster and how each head coach built their program to where it’s at, what the schedule looks like, and where the other conference coaches placed the Bulls. Today we will look at USF men’s basketball and what the new staff looks like: --- ## USF Men’s Basketball: Dawn of a New Era #### How to Rebuild the Bulls Entering his first season in Tampa, head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim knows how to turn around an underachieving program into a winner. At his previous stop, he took the Kennesaw State Owls from 1-28 in 2019 to 26-9 in 2022, leading to an A-SUN Conference Championship and an NCAA Tournament berth where his Owls nearly pulled off an upset over Xavier in the opening round. But that’s in the past, and his focus is squarely on rebuilding the USF men’s basketball program. To do so, he’s brought over two assistant coaches from Kennesaw with him in Ben Fletcher and William Small. Ben Fletcher spent the last four seasons alongside Coach AAR in Kennesaw and helped with the aforementioned historic turnaround with the Owls. Prior to his stint there, he spent 14 seasons at Troy as an assistant coach working with long-time head coach Don Maestri for the Trojans until his retirement in 2013, and then with Phil Cunningham until 2019 when he was fired and the staff was replaced, including Fletcher. William Small was hired by AAR in 2021 after a six-year stint at Iowa State and brings a staggering 28 years of coaching experience to the USF coaching staff. Notably, Small worked under Steve Prohm who he followed from Murray State to Iowa State. With the Racers saw immediate success, helping guide the team to 4 straight first place finishes and a 105-29 record from 2011-2015. For his third and final assistant coach, he brought in Desmond Oliver who brings in over 30 years of assistant coaching experience across a handful of programs including Tennessee, Georgia, and Rhode Island amongst others. Most recently, Oliver held the head coaching position at East Tennessee State where he went 27-37 over just two seasons and was subsequently let go after the conclusion of last season. However, Desmond’s bread and butter is on the recruiting trail, where he helped Tennessee reach #4 nationally in recruiting in 2020\. He also recruited two NBA draft picks in Travis Leslie and Howard Thompkins to Georgia. VP of Athletics Michael Kelly also announced a new position would be created to help support the basketball programs, welcoming former USF women’s basketball standout Joi Williams back to Tampa to serve as the Chief of Staff. Chief of Staffs typically help aid and guide in strategic objectives and initiatives in myriad ways that don’t just happen on the basketball court. Joi was recently the Assistant AD for Women’s Basketball at Mississippi State and held a head coaching role at various universities over the last 20 years. Additionally, she’ll bring experience from her time in the WNBA, team USA basketball, and more importantly her time as a player here at USF from 1984-1988. --- In the next part of this series for men’s basketball, we will look at the roster that Coach Amir has rebuilt and who are some key names to look out for in the 2023-2024 season.