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© St. Petersburg Times, published December 14, 2001
TAMPA -- South Florida baseball coach Eddie Cardieri took full advantage of the early signing period last week with eight players signed.
The class includes local high school pitchers Chris Delaney (Sickles), Chris Kemper (Bloomingdale), Jason Starr (King), junior college hurlers Tim Mattison from Florida College and Travis Rios from Lake-Sumter Community College, as well as Jon Kio from West High School in Painted Post, N.Y. The Bulls also signed outfielder Jeremy Bellotti from Dunedin and infielder Nick Cardieri from Wharton.
"We filled our needs which we anticipate are going to be mainly on the mound due to graduation over the next two seasons," Cardieri said. "This class has a lot of great arms, every player has good stuff and all are capable of winning."
MEN'S BASKETBALL: Will McDonald had the best week of his collegiate career, averaging 21.5 points per game in the Northern Illinois and Florida games. He tallied a career-high 28 points at Northern Illinois and added 15 against Florida. Also, he shot 78.2 percent from the floor in those games, averaged 4.5 rebounds, 1 steal and played 23 minutes per contest.
MORE MEN'S BASKETBALL: The Bulls' fall recruits have earned their share of honors. Yusuf Baker, a 6-foot-8 forward from Orlando Evans, has earned top 25 status at his position in numerous prep magazines. Danny Oglesby, a 6-foot-2 guard from Hamden, Conn., is the seventh all-time leading scorer in that state's high school history and Sam Barber, a 6-foot-5 guard from Lake Worth, was named High School Honorable Mention All-American by Street & Smith's.
FOOTBALL: Coach Jim Leavitt has been named the Independent Coach of the Year by CollegeFootballNews.com. Leavitt, who guided USF to an 8-3 record in its first year in Division I, is 35-20 in five seasons. This season, Leavitt led the Bulls to I-A wins against Pittsburgh, Houston, North Texas, Utah State and Connecticut. Two of the three losses came on the final play of the game -- at Northern Illinois and at Memphis.