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Posted 02/15/2011 at 10:42 AM
--The news out of Columbia was both good and bad Monday when South Carolina signed ESPN’s top-rated prep football player Jadeveon Clowney from South Pointe High School in Rock Hill, SC. This is a huge recruiting score for the Gamecocks, who are coming off their first appearance in the SEC Championship Game and return most of their nucleus for 2011. However, the program also lost an integral part when recruiting coordinator Shane Beamer announced that he was leaving South Carolina to join his father at Va. Tech. Beamer has played a major role in the Gamecocks’ stellar recruiting of top-tier guys like Marcus Lattimore, Alshon Jeffery, Stephen Garcia and Stephon Gilmore in recent years. They have signed the state’s ‘Mr. Football’ three consecutive years.
--Florida got a verbal commitment from running back Matt Jones on Monday night. Jones is a four-star prospect (per Scout.com) that becomes the third commitment for UF’s 2012 recruiting class.
True Story: There’s a 10-year-old girl in Jacksonville that has a brain tumor she’s been fighting for the last six months. She’s the daughter of two of my friends who I went to UF with and she’s a huge Gator fan. This past weekend, Tim Tebow called her and spent 15 minutes on the phone with her shooting the breeze.
--Urban Meyer bashed the NCAA in an interview with Dan Dakich on ESPN Radio in Indianapolis last week, implying that outlaw coaches are getting away with too much on the recruiting trail.
--Former UF running back Emmanuel Moody says Meyer ‘really had a heart attack.’
Moving to hoops…
--Villanova’s Corey Stokes and his 14.6 points-per-game average will be ‘out’ tonight at Seton Hall. Stokes missed Saturday’s home loss to Pitt after sustaining a turf toe injury in last week’s loss at Rutgers.
--Florida’s Chandler Parsons might miss Sunday’s game at LSU with a deep thigh bruise sustained in Saturday’s 61-60 home win over Tennessee.
--Jacob Pullen exploded for a career-high 38 points last night to lead Kansas St. to a blowout win over top-ranked Kansas. The victory was the first over an RPI Top 50 team for the Wildcats, who are now 5-6 in Big 12 play.
--Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo! Sports did an excellent job of chronicling the woes of the Sacramento Kings in the wake of Saturday’s fight between Donte Green and DeMarcus Cousins after a narrow loss to Oklahoma City.
--Upon hearing that Matt Hamill’s camp pushed for a fight with him at UFC 130, Rampage Jackson changed his tune about the upcoming fight that he had previously been sour on compared to a rematch with Rashad Evans. “He wants me? Well, he can have me. I’m going to knock him into tomorrow,” Jackson told Yahoo! Sports.
--Taylor Corley, the Mississippi State cheerleader who posed for Playboy last fall, is no longer with the cheerleading squad. She appeared on a Memphis radio show last week and implied that the 'conservative' MSU cheerleading coaches essentially told her to hit the road. No worries, though, as Corley has a future with Playboy and is also about to appear on a new reality TV show called 'Girl Swagg,' a pilot for MTV/VH1.
--For the rest of the college basketball season, I'll be appearing on the Paul Howard Show in Las Vegas on Mondays and Wednesdays at around 6:30 p.m. Eastern.
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