Coming off a disappointing loss at No. 18 Louisville, SMU returned to the newly renovated Moody Coliseum on Wednesday to dominate the University of South Florida 71-54.

SMU improves its record to 12-4 overall and 2-2 in the American Athletic Conference.

“I had been miserable since Louisville,” SMU Head Coach Larry Brown said. “But [tonight] I was real happy [with the game] we got to play a lot of people and Nic Moore and Markus [Kennedy] played really, really well.”

Kennedy led the way for the Mustangs, pouring in a career-high 18 points to go with a career-high 10 rebounds, for his first career double-double.

He has been a consistent offensive weapon all year and Wednesday’s contest was his 10th game this season (and seventh straight) in double figures.

It was the sixth time Kennedy had led the team in scoring this season and the ninth time he has led the Mustangs in rebounds.

Despite coming off the bench for the first 14 games, Kennedy is SMU’s second leading scorer.

“[Kennedy] was great tonight,” said Brown. “ He defended, he rebounded, he ran the floor. He’s capable of doing this every night. And you know the great ones do it every night no matter who they play against. So, now he has spoiled me- he is capable of doing this [every night].”

Moore added 12 points and six assists in 31 minutes of play. It was his 30th career game in double figures and his 13th this season.

The Mustangs jumped out in front early and never looked back-scoring the first 13 points of the game and held a double digit lead for 36 minutes.

The largest lead for the Mustangs came late in the second period when they were up by 26.

“We’ve been trying to get our guys to run early offense,” said Brown. “And I thought at times in the first half we really did it well.”

One of the brightest spots over the last two games has been Shawn Williams: on Wednesday he scored 16 points with seven boards.

He has only scored 10 or more points twice this season, but he has done so over the last two games. Also, all seven of his rebounds came in the first half. Offensive production aside, Brown said he was most impressed with Williams’ defensive efforts on South Florida forward Victor Rudd.

South Florida was led by Zach LeDay who contributed 12 points in the losing effort. USF has been without junior point guard Anthony Collins for seven consecutive games.

Collins is a three-year starter for South Florida; however, it’s unlikely that his presence would have made much of a difference against this rolling Mustang team.

The Mustangs will travel to Orlando, Fla. to take on UCF on Saturday. Tipoff is at 11 a.m. CT, and the game will be broadcast on ESPNews.

Winter Break Results

Here is a quick look at the results of SMU’s games played over winter break:

SMU 62 — Wyoming 54: Markus Kennedy scored 15 points and grabbed seven rebounds in the win over Wyoming.

Cincinnati 65 — SMU 57: Justin Jackson scored 17 points for Cincinnati in the first conference game for both teams.

SMU 74 — No. 17 UCONN 65: Nic Moore had 20 points and six assists in the Mustangs’ first game in refurbished Moody Coliseum.

No. 12 Louisville 71 — SMU 63: Luke Hancock’s career-high 23 points helped No. 12 Louisville hold off SMU.