Egbunu & Allen Eligible, The Inaugural American Conference Basketball Schedule Out

We interrupt our non-stop football coverage with 10 days to go to bring you some very good news: USF Basketball, possibly the unluckiest team in sports history, just caught a couple breaks!! Stop the presses!!

Both John Egbunu & Corey Allen have been cleared to play at USF, which is utterly huge for the Bulls chances this season. Egbunu is considered the biggest get of Stan Heath's six-man recruiting class, and at 6'9 (according to Yahoo) or 6'10 (according to ESPN, 64th in Top 100) or 6'11 (according to nbadraft.net, who lists him 45th) & 230 lbs. and hopefully still growing) he brings some desperately needed size to the Bulls front court. Check that nbadraft.net link to see some rather sweet post moves for a prep big, as well as some ability to run the floor.

On talent and potential, Egbunu should easily be the Bulls best post player since Kentrell Gransberry, and the best freshman entrant since Will McDonald. Anyone that saw last year's team having to play out of position constantly knows how big a legit center is for this program (apologies, Toarlyn Fitzpatrick, it certainly wasn't your fault).

Allen is a JC transfer 6'1 combo guard from Mount San Antonio College in Los Angeles. The reigning SoCal Junior College Player of The Year should provide some support to Anthony Collins as both his backup at the 1, and his back court mate at the 2. Video here.

Also we now have the Bulls inaugural schedule in the 'MURICA (we're embracing the name... lots of Chuck Norris, guns, and freedom images to accompany all mentions of the league). All the games are on TV which is good, and some are even on channels you don't have to pay extra money for every month.

Tuesday, Dec. 31 Memphis (7 p.m./ESPN2)

Saturday, Jan. 4 Houston (TBA/CBS Sports Network)

Thursday, Jan. 9 at Temple (7 p.m./ESPNU)

Wednesday, Jan. 15 at SMU (7 p.m./ESPNU)

Saturday, Jan. 18 Cincinnati (5 p.m./ESPNU)

Wednesday, Jan. 22 Louisville (7 p.m./ESPNU)

Sunday, Jan. 26 at Memphis (2 p.m./CBS Sports Network)

Tuesday, Jan. 28 SMU (7 p.m./ESPNNews)

Sunday, Feb. 2 at Cincinnati (Noon/ESPNNews)

Wednesday, Feb. 5 at UCF (7 p.m./ESPNNews)

Saturday, Feb. 8 Rutgers (8 p.m./ESPNNews)

Wednesday, Feb. 12 at Connecticut (TBA/ESPN/ESPN2)

Saturday, Feb. 15 UCF (4:30 p.m./ESPNNews)

Tuesday, Feb. 18 at Louisville (7 p.m./CBS Sports Network)

Wednesday, Feb. 26 Connecticut (7 p.m./CBS Sports Network)

Saturday, March 1 at Rutgers (Noon/ESPNNews)

Tuesday, March 4 at Houston (8:30 p.m./ESPNNews)

Saturday, March 8 Temple (2 p.m./ESPNNews)

Initial impressions are as follows:

1. Memphis on New Year's Eve at 7pm at home?? Might not be a well-attended game, but hopefully some people come already dressed up before heading out to the 13 Ugly Men party or Rooftop Eve or Channelside or The Aquarium or whatever. Showing up at 10pm for a New Year's Eve party isn't terrible, and barring overtime that can still happen.

2. Temple on Jan 9th should be fun. We'll attempt to cover that one in person.

3. No home game on Gasparilla. That's excellent, but instead we play Memphis that day so we're going to have to wait until March for the tournament for our first trip back to The Grindhouse since the Bulls left C-USA.

4. UCF twice in 10 days. Get the Hazmat suits ready.

5. That UConn game on Feb 26th, assuming the season is going well, could be a great college basketball atmosphere. Looking forward to that one.

6. The Temple game to finish the season at home reminds me of WVU at the Forum two years ago... if we're on the bubble, hopefully the whole community turns out like they did last time.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled obsessing over football.