UTEP’s Tim Floyd, Greg Foster in Los Angeles
USC still doesn’t have a head men’s basketball coach and someone they interviewed, Tim Floyd, just happened to be in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.
But should UTEP fans read anything into it? Probably not.
According to the Los Angeles Cathedral High School Facebook page, Floyd and his assistant coach Greg Foster were in L.A. to be at the high school gym specifically.
The picture captions, one showing just a star player shooting the ball and the other of Floyd with Cathedral’s head coach, state ” Back at it again – 2 more college coaches rolling through the Cathedral gym tonight…192 and counting…Tim Floyd and Greg Foster from UTEP here tonight .”
USC had reportedly sought Pitt’s head coach Jamie Dixon but he took himself out of the running after signing a 10-year contract last week. Floyd, who resigned from USC in 2009, spoke with USC Athletic Director Pat Haden earlier this year after Haden reached out to him.
UTEP Athletic Director Bob Stull released the following statement March 6: “I was contacted six weeks ago by Pat Haden, who was interested in talking to Tim Floyd about the USC coaching job. The meeting took place. Coach Floyd has always indicated to me that he is happy working at UTEP, and until he tells me otherwise he is our coach.”
Floyd coached USC from 2006-’09 and then resigned in the midst of the NCAA investigating the USC basketball program.
“I chose not to try my case in the media,” Floyd told ESPN in March 2010. “I left because of lack of support (at USC).”
He was hired as UTEP’s head coach in March 2010, signing a five-year contract and earning $600,000 a year.
The NCAA didn’t attach any violations to Floyd when it released its findings and sanctions on USC on June 10, 2010.
The NCAA report’s most damaging statement toward Floyd was that he sat in on a meeting with runner Rodney Guillory, who was pushing USC to recruit O.J. Mayo, and that the USC staff continued to recruit Mayo through Guillory even though they had “Googled” to find out that Guillory was identified as a “runner” for a sports agent in a case involving another NCAA member institution.
Floyd has maintained he did nothing wrong.
During Floyd’s UTEP radio show in Nov. 2010, he said that after 24 years away from UTEP that it was the right time to return. He said he and his wife, Beverly, were finally ready to plant their feet in El Paso. Floyd was previously an assistant coach at UTEP from 1978-’86 under Don Haskins.
One of the country’s top freshmen classes was recruited to UTEP under Floyd and will start playing for UTEP next season.
