Donnie Jones continues to improve his basketball team for 2010.
According to UCFSports.com, the Knights first-year head coach locked in another huge transfer for his basketball team in Tristan Spurlock, who spent last season at U. Virginia
The 6-foot-8 small forward, who was a top 100 recruit in the class of 2009, will sit out the 2010-11 season due to NCAA transfer rules, but will have three years of eligibility for the Knights after that. He was a four-star prospect according to Rivals.com coming out of World of Life Academy in Springfield, Va.
Spurlock, who played in 13 games for the Cavaliers last season, said he preferred to play in a more “up-tempo” style of offense, which the UCF coach is known for.
“I think I would do a lot better in an up-tempo system,” Spurlock told UCFSports.com. “I am a big wing, and I think that I need to be on a team that will let me be able to use my mismatches in a game.”
Spurlock left Virginia in late March, a move that Cavaliers head coach Tony Bennett called “mutual.”
“After a long discussion with Tristan and his family, we have mutually agreed that it is best for him to leave the Virginia basketball program,” Bennett said in a release. “I appreciate what he’s done for UVA basketball and understand his desire for a different playing situation. I fully support his pursuit of his goals, and he has my best wishes for the future.”
Women’s basketball
The men’s basketball team wasn’t the only team to net a quality transfer during the weekend.
On the women’s side, head coach Joi Williams and the Knights locked in an in-state transfer, Kayli Keough, who transferred from FSU.
The 6-foot-2 forward signed a Grant-in-Aid to play for the Knights. An athletic grant-in-aid is money coming from the central government for a scholarship for a student athlete.
Keough spent the past two seasons at Florida State and will sit out the 2010-11 season due to NCAA transfer rules. The Land O’ Lakes High School grad appeared in 33 games for the Seminoles the past two years. She was second on the team in 3-point percentage off the bench in 2009, hitting 45 percent of her shots from beyond the arc.
She set a career-high in points (9) and rebounds (6) versus Hawaii on Dec. 21.
Football
UCF’s games will continue to broadcast on CBS College Sports at least through 2016, as C-USA extended it’s partnership with the program on Thursday.
The agreement will provide “significant” national and regional exposure for football, men’s and women’s basketball, baseball and the 16 other Conference USA sports.
It also includes video-on-demand, Internet, broadband and wireless distribution rights for C-USA events.