Central Florida Basketball Doubles Its Jordan Population

To this point, the Jordan family’s association with Central Florida has been more about sneakers than basketball. Marcus Jordan completed a pretty average freshman season, going for 8 points, 2.5 assists and 3.1 rebounds. But now he’ll have company with the Knights as his older brother, Jeffrey, will play his final year of college eligibility as a walk-on at UCF. Jeffrey Jordan will sit out next season, but he’ll be eligible for 2011 according to Fox Sports, which first reported the transfer news.↵↵The Knights went just 15-17 last season and 6-10 in Conference USA. With a new season comes a new coach. Kirk Speraw was fired after 17 years at UCF and replaced by Marshall’s Donnie Jones. According to an ESPN piece, Jones wasted no time making inroads with the Jordan family:↵

↵↵⇥Marcus Jordan, Michael’s son, is the biggest name on the team and not just because he refused to wear the school’s Adidas over his father’s Nike. Jordan averaged eight points per game as a freshman last season. Jones talked with Michael over the phone but has yet to meet him in person. ↵⇥↵⇥“[Marcus has] a great attitude, and he’ll be one of the leaders of this team,” Jones said. “We signed five new players; we’ve got the whole team here for the summer.”↵⇥

↵↵↵Even if Jeffrey Jordan never makes an impact on the court at UCF, just his transfer to the school is worth the PR bump for a new coach trying to sell his program. (If you read the ESPN piece quoted above, Jones is certainly doing his share of selling as he enters his first season.) And with Memphis completely loaded, maybe these guys never lead UCF to a conference title, but at least they’ve gotten the program out of total anonymity and back into the minds of college basketball fans for the time being.↵

↵↵*The image above is just an illustration, but UCF has to change its logo to that, right?↵

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