USF NEW HEAD BASKETBALL COACH
Bryan Hodgson named South Florida head men’s basketball coach
Bryan Hodgson, one of the nation’s top recruiters and a rising head coach, has been named the University of South Florida head men’s basketball coach, Vice President for Athletics Michael Kelly announced Monday.
“We are thrilled to welcome Bryan Hodgson as the next head coach of USF men’s basketball,”Kelly said.“Bryan has been a part of winning programs at every level, demonstrating a remarkable ability to recruit top talent, develop players, and build championship-caliber teams. His passion, energy, and vision for USF basketball align perfectly with our commitment to excellence. We believe he is the right leader to take this program to new heights, and we can’t wait to see his impact on our student-athletes and the Tampa Bay community.”
Hodgson, 37, is South Florida’s 12th men’s basketball coach and has coached collegiately for 18 years. He came to Tampa from Arkansas State, where he spent two seasons as head coach. He guided the Red Wolves to two of the most successful seasons in program history, with back-to-back 20-win seasons. During the 2023-24 campaign, after inheriting a team that lost 20 games, he led Arkansas State’s turnaround, which included its first postseason appearance since 1999. The Red Wolves also set program records for scoring (2,019) and field goals made (1,021). Hodgson was also named a finalist for the Joe B. Hall Award, given to the nation’s top first-year head coach.
In 2024-25, the Red Wolves finished with a 25-11 record, the best in Arkansas State program history. The season featured a top-20 victory, saw the Red Wolves secure the Sun Belt Conference regular-season title, and marked their first National Invitation Tournament appearance in more than 30 years. Their offense led the conference, while their defense ranked second at the end of the regular season. Hodgson’s recruiting classes ranked atop the Sun Belt Conference in both of his seasons at Arkansas State and the incoming recruiting class is currently ranked 35th in the nation, according to 247 Sports.
“I am incredibly honored and excited to be the head coach at the University of South Florida,”Hodgson said.“From my first conversations with Michael Kelly and the USF leadership, it was clear that this place is strongly committed to building a winning culture. We are Tampa Bay’s Home for Hoops, and I can’t wait to work with our student-athletes, staff, and the passionate Bulls fan base, including the SoFlo Rodeo! We will play with energy, toughness, and a relentless drive to compete at the highest level. I can’t wait to get started!”
Before Arkansas State, he served as an assistant under Nate Oats at Alabama from 2019 to 2023 and played a key role in landing top-15 recruiting classes each season. Alabama advanced to the NCAA Tournament in three straight seasons during Hodgson’s time there, including two Sweet 16 appearances. During his final season in Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide won both the Southeastern Conference regular-season and tournament championships. Six student-athletes went on to be drafted into the NBA, including two in the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft (Brandon Miller, no. 2 overall to the Charlotte Hornets, and Noah Clowney, no. 21 to the Brooklyn Nets). During his career, Hodgson has coached a total of 12 players who went on to compete in the NBA.
From 2015 to 2019, Hodgson played a pivotal role in the University at Buffalo’s rise as a mid-major powerhouse, where he also served under Oats. He assisted in three NCAA Tournament runs, three Mid-American Conference tournament championships, two regular-season conference titles, and the program’s highest-ever national ranking (no. 14). He developed 2019 MAC Player of the Year CJ Massinburg, who finished his career as a three-time All-MAC honoree and second in school history with 1,990 career points, including 273 three-pointers.
Hodgson’s coaching career began at Fredonia State University, where he served as an assistant coach. He then went to Jamestown Community College and Midland College, where he led recruiting efforts and conducted player development workouts and in-season practice sessions.
His exceptional recruiting ability has earned him recognition as one of The Athletic’s top 25 up-and-coming coaches and one of the 50 most impactful high-major assistant coaches. He was also one of 30 assistant coaches named to the 2016 Under Armour 30 Under 30 Team by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. 247Sports.com also previously named him the no. 2 recruiter in the country.
Hodgson played collegiately at Jamestown Community College for two seasons and served as team captain both years. He earned a bachelor’s degree in sports management from Fredonia State University in 2011 and a master’s in education from the University of the Southwest in 2015.
A western New York native, Hodgson was placed in foster care as an infant and adopted at age two. He mentors children through Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. He is also the founder and president of Coaching Love Inc., which raises awareness for at-risk youth, particularly those in the foster care system or waiting to be adopted, through basketball and other sports.
Hodgson and his fiancée, Jordan, have a son, Jett, who was born in 2024.
Details regarding Coach Hodgson’s introductory press conference will be announced in the coming days.
Bryan Hodgson Coaching History 2025-Present Head Coach, University of South Florida 2023-2025 Head Coach, Arkansas State University 2019-2023 Assistant Coach, University of Alabama 2015-2019 Assistant Coach, University of Buffalo 2014-2015 Assistant Coach, Midland College 2013-2014 Volunteer Assistant, Midland College 2010-2013 Assistant Coach, Jamestown Community College 2007-2010 Assistant Coach, Fredonia State University
About USF Athletics USF Athletics sponsors 21 varsity teams, with 20 competing at the NCAA Division I level in the American Athletic Conference, including the recent additions of women’s lacrosse and women’s beach volleyball. The Bulls’ athletic program, founded in 1965, is in its 59th season.
Nearly 500 student-athletes train and compete in the Tampa General Hospital Athletics District on the east end of USF’s Tampa campus. The Bulls have won 152 conference titles across 16 sports, with 81 men’s championships and 71 women’s championships. Men’s tennis and men’s soccer lead with 20 titles each, while women’s programs have been headlined by women’s tennis (14) and volleyball (13). Since joining the American Athletic Conference in 2013, USF has secured 35 conference team titles.
Academically, USF student-athletes have achieved a program-record 20 consecutive semesters with a combined GPA of 3.0 or above as of fall 2024. Since 2015, more than 750 Bulls have earned their degrees.
Get your tickets today! Call 1-800-GO-BULLS (1-800-462-8557) or email BullsTickets@usf.edu to claim your 2024 season or single-game tickets. You can also download the USF Bulls app on the Android or Apple stores to purchase tickets and parking. Visit USFBullsTix.com for more information.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. came up with the perfect going-away present for that spirit-crushing Houston defense that bullied, battered and bedeviled him all night.
It was a defensive gem of his own. Right before the buzzer. For the win and the national title.
The Gators and Clayton somehow overcame Houston’s lockdown intensity, along with a 12-point deficit Monday night to will out a 65-63 victory in an NCAA title-game thriller decided when the Florida senior’s own D stopped the Cougars from even taking a game-winning shot at the buzzer.
“Just go 100 percent,” Clayton said when asked what he was trying to do at the finish. “We were just trying to get a stop, and we happened to get it. I’m happy we got it done.”
With Sharp looking for room, Clayton ran at him. The Houston guard dropped the ball and, unable to pick it up lest he get called for traveling, watched it bounce.
Alex Condon dived on the ball, then flipped it to Clayton, who ran to the opposite free-throw line with the buzzer sounding and tugged his jersey out of his shorts. Next, the court was awash in Gator chomps and orange and blue confetti.
“We guarded them hard and then I saw the ball loose and I just hoped we beat them to the ball,” Florida coach Todd Golden said.
This marked the fourth comeback in six March Madness wins for the Gators (36-4). They led this game for a total of 64 seconds, including the last 46 ticks of a contest that was in limbo until the final shot that never came.
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson called it “incomprehensible” that the Cougars couldn’t get a shot off on either of their last two possessions.
About the last one, Sampson said: “Clayton made a great play. But that’s why you’ve got to shot fake and get into the paint. Two’s fine.”
Will Richard had 18 points to keep the Gators in it, and they won their third overall title and first since Billy Donovan went back-to-back in 2006-07.
This time, it’s Golden, in his third year, bringing the title back to Gainesville, where the Gator faithful can celebrate a win on one of college sports’ grandest stages for the first time since Tim Tebow was playing quarterback for the football team in 2008.
This was the first hoops title for the Southeastern Conference since Kentucky in 2012, and the outcome the power conference was hoping for (expecting?) after placing a record 14 teams in the tournament.
The Cougars (35-5) and Sampson were denied their first championship, and ended up in the same spot as the colorful Phi Slama Jama teams from the 1980s — oh-so-close in second place.
This was a defensive brawl — the Gators failed to crack 70 for only the second time all season — and for most of the night, Clayton got the worst of it.
He was 0 for 4 from the field without a point through the first half. Met at the top of the circle, then double-teamed and trapped when necessary, he didn’t score until hitting two free throws with 14:57 left.
The player who scored at least 30 points in the last two games, who averaged 24.6 through the first five games of the tournament, who almost singlehandedly outscored UConn and Texas Tech down the stretch of those March Madness comebacks, finished with one 3-pointer. Before that, he had a pair of three-point plays off drives to the hoop that kept the Gators in striking range. He finished 3 for 10.
He also became part of not one, but two stops that put these Gators in the history book, and possibly cemented himself as the best basketball player to wear the orange and blue.
After Alijah Martin made two free throws to put Florida ahead 64-63 — its first lead since 8-6 — the Gators lured Sharp into a triple-team in the corner, where Clayton pressured him, and then Richard got him to dribble the ball off his leg and out of bounds.
Florida made one free throw on the next possession and that set up the finale.
The ball first went to L.J. Cryer, who led the Cougars with 19 points. Blanketed by Richard, he threw to Sharp, who was moving to spot up for a 3 when Clayton ran at him. That left him with no choice but to let the ball go.
“It was a great defensive play by Walter,” Condon said. “I just dived on it, and hearing the buzzer go was a crazy feeling.”
Instead of the 69-year-old Sampson becoming the oldest coach to win the title, the 39-year-old Golden becomes the youngest since N.C. State’s Jim Valvano in 1983 to win it all.
All three Final Four games were decided down the stretch, none by more than Florida’s six-point win over Auburn on Saturday. Any thought that the men’s game had been overtaken by the increasingly popular women will probably go on hold at least for a year.
The three women’s Final Four games, capped by UConn’s blowout of South Carolina on Sunday, were decided by an average of 24.7 points.
“When it gets down to the two best teams left,” Sampson said of the thriller he barely lost, “it’s not going to be easy for either team.”
After retiring as a player, Reich began an NFL coaching career. Holding assistant positions from 2008 to 2017, he was the offensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles when they won their first Super Bowl title in Super Bowl LII. He later served as the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts from 2018 to 2022 and guided the team to two playoff appearances. He was the Panthers head coach in 2023 before being fired before the end of the season after a 1–10 record.
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr. came up with the perfect going-away present for that spirit-crushing Houston defense that bullied, battered and bedeviled him all night.
It was a defensive gem of his own. Right before the buzzer. For the win and the national title.
The Gators and Clayton somehow overcame Houston’s lockdown intensity, along with a 12-point deficit Monday night to will out a 65-63 victory in an NCAA title-game thriller decided when the Florida senior’s own D stopped the Cougars from even taking a game-winning shot at the buzzer.
“Just go 100 percent,” Clayton said when asked what he was trying to do at the finish. “We were just trying to get a stop, and we happened to get it. I’m happy we got it done.”
With Sharp looking for room, Clayton ran at him. The Houston guard dropped the ball and, unable to pick it up lest he get called for traveling, watched it bounce.
Alex Condon dived on the ball, then flipped it to Clayton, who ran to the opposite free-throw line with the buzzer sounding and tugged his jersey out of his shorts. Next, the court was awash in Gator chomps and orange and blue confetti.
“We guarded them hard and then I saw the ball loose and I just hoped we beat them to the ball,” Florida coach Todd Golden said.
This marked the fourth comeback in six March Madness wins for the Gators (36-4). They led this game for a total of 64 seconds, including the last 46 ticks of a contest that was in limbo until the final shot that never came.
Houston coach Kelvin Sampson called it “incomprehensible” that the Cougars couldn’t get a shot off on either of their last two possessions.
About the last one, Sampson said: “Clayton made a great play. But that’s why you’ve got to shot fake and get into the paint. Two’s fine.”
Will Richard had 18 points to keep the Gators in it, and they won their third overall title and first since Billy Donovan went back-to-back in 2006-07.
This time, it’s Golden, in his third year, bringing the title back to Gainesville, where the Gator faithful can celebrate a win on one of college sports’ grandest stages for the first time since Tim Tebow was playing quarterback for the football team in 2008.
This was the first hoops title for the Southeastern Conference since Kentucky in 2012, and the outcome the power conference was hoping for (expecting?) after placing a record 14 teams in the tournament.
The Cougars (35-5) and Sampson were denied their first championship, and ended up in the same spot as the colorful Phi Slama Jama teams from the 1980s — oh-so-close in second place.
This was a defensive brawl — the Gators failed to crack 70 for only the second time all season — and for most of the night, Clayton got the worst of it.
He was 0 for 4 from the field without a point through the first half. Met at the top of the circle, then double-teamed and trapped when necessary, he didn’t score until hitting two free throws with 14:57 left.
The player who scored at least 30 points in the last two games, who averaged 24.6 through the first five games of the tournament, who almost singlehandedly outscored UConn and Texas Tech down the stretch of those March Madness comebacks, finished with one 3-pointer. Before that, he had a pair of three-point plays off drives to the hoop that kept the Gators in striking range. He finished 3 for 10.
He also became part of not one, but two stops that put these Gators in the history book, and possibly cemented himself as the best basketball player to wear the orange and blue.
After Alijah Martin made two free throws to put Florida ahead 64-63 — its first lead since 8-6 — the Gators lured Sharp into a triple-team in the corner, where Clayton pressured him, and then Richard got him to dribble the ball off his leg and out of bounds.
Florida made one free throw on the next possession and that set up the finale.
The ball first went to L.J. Cryer, who led the Cougars with 19 points. Blanketed by Richard, he threw to Sharp, who was moving to spot up for a 3 when Clayton ran at him. That left him with no choice but to let the ball go.
“It was a great defensive play by Walter,” Condon said. “I just dived on it, and hearing the buzzer go was a crazy feeling.”
Instead of the 69-year-old Sampson becoming the oldest coach to win the title, the 39-year-old Golden becomes the youngest since N.C. State’s Jim Valvano in 1983 to win it all.
All three Final Four games were decided down the stretch, none by more than Florida’s six-point win over Auburn on Saturday. Any thought that the men’s game had been overtaken by the increasingly popular women will probably go on hold at least for a year.
The three women’s Final Four games, capped by UConn’s blowout of South Carolina on Sunday, were decided by an average of 24.7 points.
“When it gets down to the two best teams left,” Sampson said of the thriller he barely lost, “it’s not going to be easy for either team.”
