Troy Baxter Not Coming To USF

The prize of the 2016 USF men's basketball recruiting class and an ESPN Top 100 player won't ever suit up for the Bulls.

2016 South Florida signee Troy Baxter was released from his Letter of Intent today, per a source. Eligible for this coming season.

— Evan Daniels (@EvanDaniels) August 26, 2016

We had heard this as well, and called several people at USF asking to confirm earlier this week, but got the runaround. So we tried to do things the right way, and then saw national reporters break the story. Again. Thanks so much USF! I'm not even sub-tweeting here, I'm just pissed.

Baxter was enrolled half-time this summer at USF (pretty common for students that begin their college careers in Summer B), and we were waiting for the end of the drop-add period (tonight at midnight) to confirm that he wasn't enrolled for fall semester.

We've also heard Oregon is a possible destination, just like former USF signee-non-enrollee Waverly Austin.

This is a massive loss to a program that's already under NCAA investigation and won all of eight games last year. Baxter was a high-ceiling player with the potential to help turn it around for Orlando Antigua. Our Ryan Smith interviewed him as part of a profile while still in high school, and saw a guy with the chance to turn it around for the Bulls. Yet another what-might-have-been for USF basketball.

Good luck to Troy wherever he lands.