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The long hot summer has begun.  Without football to talk about, the conversation naturally turns to everything else.  For USF, that is player arrests, prejudging judges, and a coach who is an educator.

Looking Back

The honorable and most ashamed of USF judge in town, Judge Margaret Taylor, has reportedly met with Bulls’ football head coach, Charlie Strong, after recusing herself from the case of LaDarrius JacksonJackson has now been arrested a second time for a similar charge with a different alleged victim.  After the first charge, Strong suspended Jackson from the team, waiting for the facts to come out before acting more permanently.  After the second arrest, Jackson was kicked off the teamApparently, Strong was “able to educate” the judge during their ten minute meeting in Chief Judge Ron Ficarrotta’s chambers.  Educated or not, the Tampa Bay Times editorializes that it’s “never too late to do the right thing.”

Looking Forward

Incoming men’s basketball coach, Brian Gregory, has inherited an awful situation in Tampa.  Nearly every scholarship player recruited in the past several cycles has left the program.  Some made that decision on their own and others have had it made for them by one of the several coaches during that span.  Gregory clearly understands the urgency of the moment and is wasting no time building an experienced team with pieces of others.  The most recent addition is Auburn transfer, T.J. LangLang is a 6-7 guard who averaged just under five points per game with the Tigers.  He’ll have one year of eligibility with the Bulls after sitting out the 2017-18 season.

Lang will join other recent transfers in Laquincy Rideau and Alexis Yetna.  Rideau is a 6-1 guard from the Big South’s Gardner-Webb and Yetna is a 6-8 forward who is completing a year of play with Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut.  Yetna will be a freshman in the 2017-18 season, but Rideau will have to sit the season out due to transfer rules.  He will have two years of eligibility remaining after that.

The #22 USF men’s tennis team will face #35 Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament at the University of Georgia on Friday morning.  The Bulls earned a spot in the tournament after winning the American Athletic Conference outright.

After beating #5 Gators, the chatter about #23 Bulls gets louder as they head for the postseason.  USF holds first place in the conference as they head to Storrs to face the Huskies for a three game series this weekend.

The USF softball team has started conference tournament play.  The Tampa Bay Times’ Joey Knight writes about their grit. 

  

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