Central Florida's 7-foot-6 center Tacko Fall will miss the remainder of the season due to a troublesome shoulder injury.
Fall, a junior from Senegal, has played through the injury this season -- he hurt his shoulder last summer -- and will undergo surgery in about a week.
"It's unfortunate for any young man to miss this amount of time playing the game that he loves due to an injury," UFC coach Johnny Dawkins said Saturday. "Our top priority at UCF is to maintain the well-being of our student-athletes, so our main concern right now is getting Tacko back to being 100 percent healthy."
Tuesday, in what turned out to be Fall's final game, he scored seven points in a 49-38 loss to Cincinnati. Bearcats senior Gary Clark had high praise for Fall's ability to alter a team's offensive approach.
"You watch him on film, and then you see him in person, and his arms are so long that you don't know how far he is away from you," Clark said. "You think you're open, and then he blocks a shot, and after that everybody is just trying to get it off as fast as they can."
Fall averaged 11.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game in UCF's 12-6 start. He averaged 22 minutes per game and shot 76.7 percent from the field (79-of-103).
"Every time we play UCF, there is a shock factor for the first few minutes because of Tacko,'' Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said after his team's win this week.