Two Florida basketball players arrested on felony charge

Cody Larson and Erik Murphy, forwards on the Florida basketball team, are facing third-degree burglary charges -- a felony -- stemming from an incident late Saturday night/early Sunday morning.

Try to follow along, because this is, well, pretty strange.

Both Larson (19) and Murphy (20) went into a bar around closing time with student manager Josh Adel (21) to inquire about a lost wallet. They got close to an employee of the bar that was counting cash and were asked to leave, but instead of leaving they tried to break into an employee's car in the parking lot.

(h/t RTC for the photo)

When they were spotted by the people still working in the bar, the three took off. Larson and Murphy got away, but Adel was caught a block later. Adel was arrested and managed to convince Murphy to come back and turn himself in. He, too, was arrested. Those two were sitting in the back on the police cruiser when Larson called them "seven or eight times". The three talked, on speaker phone, about how they planned to talk their way out of the trouble with two officers sitting in the front seat.

Smart.

Eventually, Murphy and Adel convinced Larson to turn himself in as well, which was probably not an easy decision for him to make. Larson, who is currently redshirting this season, was suspended by his high school team in February of his senior year for using hydrocodone, and then was arrested in May of that year and given a 120-day suspended jail sentence and two year's probation for the same crime. Gatorsports.com had this to say on Larson:

Donovan said last fall that Larson came to Florida with a clean slate, but that consequences could be severe if he slipped up while on campus.

Both Larson and Murphy were expected to play a major role in the front court next season for the Gators. With Chandler Parsons, Alex Tyus, and Vernon Macklin all graduating, that leaves rising sophomore Patric Young, Larson, and Murphy as Florida's lone front-court players.