• Toreros gain a pair of transfers for 2021-22 season.
USD has picked up two transfers for its men’s basketball team, which struggled this season through multiple COVID-19 pauses and won just three of 14 games.
Bryce Monroe, the freshman of the year in the Southland Conference this season, tweeted he is transferring from Sam Houston State to USD. A 5-11 point guard, Monroe averaged 10.1 points and 2.8 assists in 21 minutes per game off the bench.
“After careful consideration I have decided that San Diego is the best fit for me,” Monroe said on Twitter.
Also joining the Toreros is Terrell Brown, a graduate transfer from Pitt, where he played 118 games the last four years, starting 46. Brown played 17 minutes a game in his career and shot 45 percent from the field, averaging 4.6 points and 3.6 rebounds. A 6-10, 235-pound center, he blocked 173 shots in four seasons, including a single-game school record of nine in one game against Colgate in the 2018-19 season.
Brown is from Providence, R.I. His transfer was first tweeted by the Boston Amateur Basketball Club, an AAU program.
Oklahoma’s Kruger retires
Oklahoma men’s coach Lon Kruger announced his retirement on Thursday, culminating a 35-year career that included taking five different schools to the NCAA Tournament — with two of them reaching the Final Four — and more than 650 career wins.
Kruger, 68, led Florida to the national semifinals in 1994 and Oklahoma to the same spot in 2016. He is the only coach to lead five different programs to NCAA Tournament wins — Oklahoma, Kansas State, Florida, Illinois and UNLV.
His 674-432 career record ranks 10th among active coaches in wins and 27th all time.
He led the Sooners to a 195-128 record in 10 years and reached seven of the past eight NCAA tournaments. In his final season at Oklahoma, the Sooners went 1611 and ended with a loss to top-seeded Gonzaga in the second round on Monday.
Along the way, he built a reputation for fixing struggling programs.
“His track record of successfully rebuilding programs everywhere he coached is made even more impressive when considering how he did it,” Oklahoma Athletic Director Joe Castiglione said. “He won with integrity, humility, class and grace.”
Among his many accomplishments, he was voted the AP Big 12 Coach of the Year in 2014. He led his alma mater, Kansas State, to the Elite Eight in 1988.
More coaching news
Jacksonville hired Florida assistant Jordan Mincy, 34, as its head coach, landing an up-and-comer to lead a
basketball that hasn’t been relevant since making the NCAA championship game in 1970.
• Eastern Washington promoted David Riley to head coach following the school’s NCAA Tournament appearance.
Riley will replace Shantay Legans, who left Eastern Washington this week to take over as the head coach at Portland.
• Pat Kelsey is leaving Winthrop to become College of Charleston’s men’s coach. Charleston Athletic Director Matt Roberts announced Kelsey’s hiring. Kelsey, 45, spent nine seasons with the Eagles, leading them to three NCAA Tournament berths including this past season.
• South Carolina State hired former Memphis assistant Tony Madlock to be its men’s head coach. Madlock has spent 25 years as an assistant coach, including the past three seasons at Memphis under head coach and college teammate Penny Hardaway.
Notable
West Virginia forward Emmitt Matthews is planning to transfer. Matthews joins guard Jordan McCabe,
who announced earlier this week that he was entering the transfer portal. In addition, junior guard Sean McNeil
said earlier that he was planning to enter the NBA Draft but leave open the possibility of returning to school.
• Dynamic 5-foot-7 Miami Hurricanes guard Chris Lykes decided to turn pro after a senior season limited to two games because of an ankle injury.
• Georgia Tech senior guard Bubba Parham will take advantage of the extra year of eligibility provided by the NCAA due to the coronavirus pandemic and return for the 2021-22 season.
• Florida point guard Tre Mann, the program’s best one-on-one playmaker since Jason Williams more than two decades ago, is leaving school early and turning pro.