The Sun Belt announced the addition of Texas State for July 1, 2013 Wednesday. That's the same date FIU and North Texas are expected to become Conference USA members.
"If we were to lose two current members, replacing them with Georgia State and Texas State gets us back to 10 football schools with Arkansas-Little Rock as a non-football member," Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson said in a Wednesday afternoon conference call. "The goal is to get to 12 members to create some geographical efficiency with members in the West vs. the East."
Benson said they hadn't been notified by North Texas or FIU that they were leaving. That's true -- officially. While all the papers haven't been signed, know that FIU is engaged to be engaged to C-USA (sort of like Otter said he was to the late Fawn Liebowitz).
In contrast to his predecessor, Wright Waters, Benson said they didn't want to get to 12 schools just for a football championship game and wasn't sure such an event was in the Sun Belt's best interest. Benson said the Sun Belt would search for FBS schools within the Sun Belt's "geographic footprint" and had been confacted by four to six FCS (what we used to call Division I-AA) schools within that footprint. If they wanted a large Florida market, they could look at Jacksonville.
Anyway, FIU's got one more season in The Belt before doing a little George-and-Weezy to C-USA. Count those players on the field or court...
MEN'S BASKETBALL
The school announced the signing of guard Tymell Murphy out of Brooklyn by way of South Plains College and Mohawk Valley Community College. South Plains won the NJCAA championship this season. Murphy averaged 9.9 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 0.8 steals and 0.6 blocks. He shot 57 percent from the field, 43 percent from three-point range and 71 percent from the line.
The nomadic Murphy averaged 16.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.3 steals per game for Mohawk Valley in 2010-11. He shot 52 percent from the field, 33 percent from beyond the arc and 60 percent from the line.
FOOTBALL
FIU freshman-to-be Dieugot Joseph, a 6-6 defensive end, noted on Twitter that the move to Conference USA means he'll be playing games against his brother, 6-3, 289-pound Marshall freshman offensive lineman Josue Joseph.
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