Colleges

Ole Miss loss might be basketball team's gain

By GREG AUMAN
Published April 5, 2006

The basketball coaching change at Mississippi could help the Bulls land a talented recruit in 6-foot-1 point guard Solomon Bozeman of Magnolia, Ark., who will make an official campus visit to USF this weekend.

Bozeman signed with Mississippi in November, but when Rod Barnes was fired and replaced by Andy Kennedy , he requested and was granted his release from the Rebels. Bozeman averaged 28.5 points per game as a senior, leading his team to the state championship game.

"He's a very heady player who understands the game very well, a point who can really score," said Magnolia coach Chris Meseke . "Whoever gets him will have a good floor general, a real leader."

Bozeman's father, Eric , was an assistant at Ole Miss for seven seasons before leaving a year ago to become head coach at Division II Southern Arkansas. USF's director of basketball operations, Scott Thompson , worked four years with the Rebels basketball team in various capacities, giving the Bulls staff a personal tie to the Bozeman family.

The Bulls already have a freshman at point guard in Chris Howard (who took a medical redshirt last season) but Bozeman could contribute at both guard positions. He hit 40 percent of his 3-point attempts and 91 percent of his free throws as a senior. USF has two scholarships available for the spring signing period, with the other likely going to a frontline player.

SOFTBALL: Three weeks ago, Ken Eriksen 's team was 16-14, looking little like a squad picked to finish third in their first season in the Big East.

Since then, USF is 16-4, including four conference wins over the weekend in sweeps of Seton Hall and St. John's as league play started. A year after going 42-28 and making the NCAA field for the third year in a row, the Bulls are poised to make a deeper run.

The Bulls (32-18) have found their bats, raising their team average to .285, third-best in the conference, and sophomore Bree Spence and freshman Cristi Ecks continue to dominate on the mound.

"There was an epiphany of what team play is supposed to be about," Eriksen said. "It starts with the consistency of our two starters. Those two kids have kept us in a lot of games."

Spence hasn't allowed an earned run in 21.1 innings, and Sunday she pitched all but one out in a 2-0 win against St. John's, then came back a few hours later to pitch four innings of one-hit shutout ball in an 11-inning win. Spence (1.29) and Ecks (1.06) have two of the Big East's four lowest ERAs.

MAYBE NOT: Less than a week after USF announced men's basketball assistant Julius Allen was leaving the Bulls' staff to "move closer to his native New York area," he reportedly has impacted another Big East program.

Manhattan coach Bobby Gonzalez , a finalist for Seton Hall's vacancy, had "all but locked up" the Pirates job Saturday, according to the New York Daily News . But Gonzalez wanted Allen to be on his staff, and athletic director Joe Quinlan disagreed enough that he brought in Ohio's Tim O'Shea for a second interview, according to the newspaper.

Allen's ties to New York were supposed to help the Bulls recruit in the Big East, but his preferences never seemed to mesh with coach Robert McCullum 's. Allen's only contribution was guard David Sills , who was dismissed before playing a single game.

THIS AND THAT: USF's men's soccer team closes its spring exhibition season at 8 p.m. on April 15 against national powerhouse North Carolina at the Countryside Complex in Clearwater. Alas, that's the same time as USF's spring football game. USF's women play in the same tournament against Baylor at 6 p.m. on April 14. ... Technically, both of USF's new football assistants got raises to join the Bulls. Defensive line coach Bernard Clark , who made $62,000 last year as Florida International's defensive coordinator, will make $70,000, as will defensive secondary coach Troy Douglas , who would have made $56,500 as running backs coach at North Texas. Of course, last year as defensive backs coach at Indiana, Douglas made $120,000, more than any of USF's assistants last season. ... Former USF point guard Reggie Kohn , who has taken Lake Howell High to the state semifinals in all three of his seasons as head coach, is considering moving to the college coaching ranks. If Kohn, 26, is to join a major program, it would likely be as a director of basketball operations. "I want to see what my options are," Kohn said. "I have a good thing here, but I can always go back to high school."

--Greg Auman covers USF athletics. He can be reached at auman@sptimes.com Check out his "USF Bulletin" blog online at www.sptimes.com/blogs/usf

[Last modified April 5, 2006, 00:38:13]