UTEP head basketball coach Tim Floyd announces retirement

In a stunning move, UTEP basketball head coach Tim Floyd announced that he’s going to retire.

It happened during a news conference Monday evening after losing the game to Lamar 66-52.

Floyd said “the timing was right.”

The announcement comes just hours after UTEP announced its new athletics director, Jim Senter, who last held the job at Citadel. Senter is also looking for a new head football coach for the Miners after Sean Kugler resigned in the middle of a losing season.

The Miner community is grasping for answers to the question, “What happened?”

“I know he’s not been feeling well,” said Jon Teicher, the longtime voice of the Miners, during a live interview on ABC-7 at Ten Monday. “He missed three days of practice a couple of weeks ago, which is unheard of. He considered not coming to the game tonight.”

“Tim Floyd’s health is a major concern right now. The man is 63, he does have a family. He has grandkids that he wants to spend time with and the fact is … is that right now if he has some serious health issues he’s not going to risk it coaching in a pressure filled job were he’s not winning and there’s a lot of heat on him right now,” said 600 ESPN sports radio host Steve Kaplowitz.

Floyd also leaves the team just days before the Miners’ two big rivalry games. UTEP is set to meet the NMSU Aggies on Thursday and the New Mexico Lobos on Saturday.

Floyd took the head coach position in 2010, and had a 465-274 overall record but was unable to take the team to the NCAA tournament during his tenure.

As he was leaving the Don Haskins Center late Monday night, Coach Floyd told ABC-7’s Jerry Najera UTEP is the place he loved more than anywhere else in the world.

“I want to coach my last game at this university,” he had said earlier that evening.

And Monday night, he did.