USC's Floyd not on LSU's list
ATLANTA - Funny thing about that story in the Los Angeles Daily News that has been run across the country over the last day.
The story says, "USC basketball coach Tim Floyd has been contacted by Louisiana State about its vacant coaching position, according to multiple sources."
The funny part is that Floyd has never been a focus of this LSU search and is not now. He was when Dale Brown retired after the 1996-97 season, but not this time.
A list of possible coaching candidates received by Gannett Louisiana recently, which included nine names at varying levels of LSU interest, did not even include Floyd.
The coaches on that list include Virginia Commonwealth's Anthony Grant, who is at the top of the list and is the surest bet to become the next LSU coach. The others, not necessarily in this order, are Travis Ford of Massachusetts, Sean Miller of Xavier, Tony Bennett of Washington State, Jamie Dixon of Pittsburgh, Scott Drew of Baylor, Brian Gregory of Dayton, Chris Lowery of Southern Illinois and Jim Christian of Kent State.
The ceiling salary of $1.5 million that LSU has set would not be enough to lure Floyd. But it's more than that. The key LSU people involved in the search, rightly or wrongly, see the 54-year-old Floyd as more of a retread than a rising young coach such as Grant, who is 41. I do not agree with that sentiment. LSU football coach Les Miles, by the way, is also 54, and few see him as a retread. Floyd would be a great hire at LSU, and LSU should spend more than $1.5 million on a coach if the coach it sees as the best hire would call for more salary than that based on his salary and work history.
Perhaps Floyd, who is good friends with former LSU coach John Brady and may not want to replace him partly for that reason, was not interested in LSU before LSU was not interested in him.
But the bottom line is LSU is not interested in Floyd now and has not contacted him.
LSU may have likely not contacted any candidate, including Grant, directly yet. But an LSU official told me Wednesday that LSU has also not had anyone contact Floyd or Floyd's people. Grant's people, meanwhile, already have been contacted by LSU's people.
Could Floyd or someone close to him be telling reporters that LSU has contacted him in order to get a raise or to make him look like a hot commodity? Who knows? College basketball is a business.
Maybe someone who said he was with LSU or representing LSU's wishes who wants Floyd to be the coach called Floyd or Floyd's people, who then told the Los Angeles paper.
Such a person may not be involved at all in the LSU search. This has happened before. In 1999, when LSU was about to begin looking for a coach to replace Gerry DiNardo, who had not quite been fired yet, a parent of an LSU football player called Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville because that parent liked Tuberville. LSU was never interested in Tuberville, even though it should have been.
Who knows who the Los Angeles paper's "mulltiple sources" are? But had that paper vetted their secret information with the right "multiple" people at LSU, they would have learned that LSU has never been interested in Floyd and still isn't.
The story says, "USC basketball coach Tim Floyd has been contacted by Louisiana State about its vacant coaching position, according to multiple sources."
The funny part is that Floyd has never been a focus of this LSU search and is not now. He was when Dale Brown retired after the 1996-97 season, but not this time.
A list of possible coaching candidates received by Gannett Louisiana recently, which included nine names at varying levels of LSU interest, did not even include Floyd.
The coaches on that list include Virginia Commonwealth's Anthony Grant, who is at the top of the list and is the surest bet to become the next LSU coach. The others, not necessarily in this order, are Travis Ford of Massachusetts, Sean Miller of Xavier, Tony Bennett of Washington State, Jamie Dixon of Pittsburgh, Scott Drew of Baylor, Brian Gregory of Dayton, Chris Lowery of Southern Illinois and Jim Christian of Kent State.
The ceiling salary of $1.5 million that LSU has set would not be enough to lure Floyd. But it's more than that. The key LSU people involved in the search, rightly or wrongly, see the 54-year-old Floyd as more of a retread than a rising young coach such as Grant, who is 41. I do not agree with that sentiment. LSU football coach Les Miles, by the way, is also 54, and few see him as a retread. Floyd would be a great hire at LSU, and LSU should spend more than $1.5 million on a coach if the coach it sees as the best hire would call for more salary than that based on his salary and work history.
Perhaps Floyd, who is good friends with former LSU coach John Brady and may not want to replace him partly for that reason, was not interested in LSU before LSU was not interested in him.
But the bottom line is LSU is not interested in Floyd now and has not contacted him.
LSU may have likely not contacted any candidate, including Grant, directly yet. But an LSU official told me Wednesday that LSU has also not had anyone contact Floyd or Floyd's people. Grant's people, meanwhile, already have been contacted by LSU's people.
Could Floyd or someone close to him be telling reporters that LSU has contacted him in order to get a raise or to make him look like a hot commodity? Who knows? College basketball is a business.
Maybe someone who said he was with LSU or representing LSU's wishes who wants Floyd to be the coach called Floyd or Floyd's people, who then told the Los Angeles paper.
Such a person may not be involved at all in the LSU search. This has happened before. In 1999, when LSU was about to begin looking for a coach to replace Gerry DiNardo, who had not quite been fired yet, a parent of an LSU football player called Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville because that parent liked Tuberville. LSU was never interested in Tuberville, even though it should have been.
Who knows who the Los Angeles paper's "mulltiple sources" are? But had that paper vetted their secret information with the right "multiple" people at LSU, they would have learned that LSU has never been interested in Floyd and still isn't.
posted by Glenn Guilbeau at 12:54 PM
1 Comments:
Why not consider Mike McConathy! He is a great coach and we all see what he has been doing at Northwestern State! He is a local Louisiana guy who has tremendous coaching ability! He really helped me at Airline High School.
Felix Smith
Dallas, Texas
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