Franz Beard’s Basketball Confidential

Now that it’s official that Brandon Powell will be transferring from the University of Florida, most likely to Marshall where he will play for former UF assistant Donnie Jones, the big question is do the Gators go after one more commitment or two? The Gators have nine on scholarship for 2007-08 and they have three committed to the recruiting class of 2008 so conventional wisdom would say one and done. However, this might be a good time to defy conventional wisdom.

The scholarship limit is 13, so a class of four to go with the nine on ship and you should be able to call it a day but that doesn’t take into account how rapidly Marreese Speights is developing. Everybody that has seen his workouts recently has been wowed by how much he has improved since April in nearly every facet of his game. He’s always had the explosion and that ability to go get the ball, but now he’s adding some polish to his game and the product, while far from finished, is quite impressive.

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Franz Beard
Back in January of 1969, the late, great Jack Hairston, then the sports editor of the Jacksonville Journal, called me on the phone one night and asked me if I wanted to work for him. I said yes. The entire interview took 30 seconds. It's my experience that whenever the interview lasts 30 seconds or less, I get the job. In the 48 years that I've been writing and getting paid for it, I've covered Super Bowls, World Series, NCAA basketball championships, BCS championship games, heavyweight title fights and what seems like thousands of college football, baseball and basketball games. I'm a columnist and special assignments editor for Gator Country once again, writing about the only team that ever mattered to me, the Florida Gators.