Colleges

Big East poll picks USF last in basketball

By Times staff, wires
Published October 25, 2007

TAMPA - While Louisville and Georgetown tied as preseason picks to win the Big East, the league's coaches picked USF to finish last out of 16 schools in the conference preseason poll released Wednesday.

"It's good to throw up in the locker room, or you can flush it down the toilet," said first-year Bulls coach Stan Heath, who attended the league's media gathering at Madison Square Garden in New York, with center Kentrell Gransberry and point guard Chris Howard. "I think we can definitely be a team that looks a lot different at the end of the year from what people think of us right now."

Gransberry was one of 11 players named to the preseason All-Conference team, the only player from a team picked to finish in the bottom half of the standings. Gransberry, the nation's top returning rebounder after averaging a double double last season, was also named Wednesday as one of 50 on the preseason candidates list for the John R. Wooden Award.

Georgetown center Roy Hibbert was picked as player of the year and joins Gransberry on the preseason team. The others: Villanova's Scottie Reynolds, Louisville's David Padgett, Georgetown's Jonathan Wallace, Marquette's Dominic James and Jerel McNeal, UConn's Jeff Adrien, Louisville's Terrence Williams, Providence's Geoff McDermott and Syracuse's Eric Devendorf.

USF COMMITMENT: Heath has picked up his second verbal commitment toward next month's early signing period, getting a pledge Monday from Eladio Espinosa, a 6-foot-7 forward from Charlotte, N.C., who is playing this season at Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia. Espinosa joins 6-foot-11 Gene Swindle of Miami Gulliver Prep as USF commitments.

Greg Auman, Times Staff Writer

More basketball

PITT: Darnell Dodson, a guard who was a key member of what coach Jamie Dixon called his best recruiting class, plans to transfer to Miami Dade College after learning he wasn't eligible this season.

ACC WOMEN: Maryland, which returns four starters, was an overwhelming pick to win the conference title by the ACC's coaches and sports information directors. The Terps were followed by North Carolina, Duke and Florida State. Maryland's Crystal Langhorne was preseason player of the year.

SEC WOMEN: Tennessee, which returns four starters from its national championship team, was predicted to win the SEC championship, and Candace Parker was selected player of the year by regional and national media representatives. Florida (9-22 last season) was picked to finish 10th of the 12 teams. UF guard Sha Brooks, last season's leading scorer, was voted to the second team. Tennessee plays Oklahoma at 9:30 on Nov. 15 at the St. Pete Times Forum.

Football

STANFORD: Running back Jason Evans is out for the season with an injured left knee. Evans was playing for starter Anthony Kimble, who is likely out Saturday at Oregon State because of a shoulder injury.

Minority hiring study

ORLANDO - Coaches, athletic directors and school presidents have broken race barriers in college sports, yet a big one persists: No minority has been commissioner of the nation's top 11 football-playing conferences.

Richard Lapchick, head of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, released a report rebuking college football on race in several areas.

Lapchick supported a call by the Black Coaches and Administrators to expand diversity among coaches. Eight of the 120 Division I-A programs had minority head coaches, according to his report.

Lapchick suggests requiring at least one minority candidate be interviewed for a vacancy.

Charlotte Westerhaus, the NCAA's vice president for diversity and inclusion, called the small percentage of black coaches "deeply troubling."

Information from Times wires was used in this report.

[Last modified October 24, 2007, 21:23:16]