On Wednesday, the University of South Florida (USF) announced that former Kennesaw State coach Amir Abdur-Rahim will become the next head coach of the Bulls. He will become the 13th head coach in the program’s history.
End of the Gregory Era
The Bulls recently fired Brian Gregory after six seasons with the Bulls. The team finished 14-18 overall and 7-11 in AAC play this season. Tampa’s season came to an end when East Carolina defeated them in a lopsided 73-58 victory, which led to Gregory’s firing.
Gregory finished in Tampa with a career record of 79-107.
Abdur-Rahim’s Tenure at Kennesaw State
Abdur-Rahim is an interesting hire for the Bulls. At Kennesaw State, he quite literally built the Owls from the ground up. His first year with KSU was in 2019 when the team went an abysmal 1-28. Every year since then, they have been on a steady trend up.
This year, Kennesaw State went 26-9 overall and 15-3 in conference play. They won both the Atlantic Sun conference tournament as well as the regular season tournament. They also got the first NCAA tournament berth in the program’s history.
The selection show gave them a 14th seed and had them go up against the Xavier Musketeers. The Owls actually held the lead for a large amount of that game and were up by double-digits. However, a late run for the Musketeers gave them a 72-67 win and ended KSU’s short-lived glory moment.
What can he do in Tampa Bay?
The South Florida program has not seen an NCAA tournament game since 2012 when they beat California in a play-in game and then upset fifth-seeded Temple in the first round.
USF’s last conference title was in 2000 when the team was in C-USA; the AAC did not exist yet.
Outlook
Abdur-Rahim has proven he can bring a team from the ground back up to notability. He did it for the KSU Owls. Now, he gets a chance to do it in major division one college basketball for South Florida.