What fanbase? I grew up in Tampa and can attest, no one in that area cares about USF.
What fans they had disappeared immediately with terrible play and the demise of the Big East as a conference. If I ever hear people talk about USF now in the TB area it's to bemoan the fact that they now play (and sometimes lose to) the likes of SMU, ECU, and Tulsa when they used to get name brand teams like West Virginia and Pitt, etc. They thought they were so much better than that and can't stomach the drop in class. A win against FSU would be huge but I'm not sure even that would get the fans back to going to games when ECU and UCONN come to town next month -- It will be back to a terrible atmosphere with 18,000 people in a 65,000 capacity facility.