Tue Jun 09, 2009 7:49 pm EDT
The reports will say that Tim Floyd "resigned" from his position as head basketball coach at USC. His letter, sent to school officials this afternoon, says the same thing. Really, though, we know better.
In all likelihood, this was a decision that was forced upon the embattled Floyd by a USC administration that wasn't going to tolerate malfeasance from a mediocre coach. It seems like a preemptive strike designed to appease the NCAA during its investigation of USC's basketball program. Force Tim Floyd out the door now and maybe any possible violations stemming from the eventual findings will be lessened.
In his letter, Floyd wrote:
"As of 1 p.m. today, I am resigning as head basketball coach at the University of Souithern California ... Unfortunately, I know longer feel I can offer the level of enthusiasm to my duties that is deserved by the university, my coaching staff, my players, their families, and the supporters of Southern Cal. I always promised my self and my family that if I ever felt I could no longer give my full enthusiasm to a job, that I should leave it to others who could."
One week after Floyd passionately (and hilariously) came out against one of his players declaring for the draft and two months after he rebuffed Arizona's coaching advances because he said he wanted to build his own traditions at USC, we're supposed to believe that he can't muster the enthusiasm to coach? Floyd is many things, but dispassionate isn't one of them. Now he, and USC, expect the college basketball world to think that this resignation is about apathy and not about the explosive allegations that were reported by Yahoo! Sports last month? Oh, come on.
Contrary to the old adage, things are almost always what they seem in college basketball. Indiana learned that when they hired Kelvin Sampson. Memphis is getting that lesson right now, as they deal with fallout from John Calipari's seemingly-lawless reign at the school. And now USC has realized that the things that seemed too good to be true (like O.J. Mayo recruiting himself to the school) were, indeed, too good to be true.
The Dagger is a college basketball blog edited by Jeff Eisenberg. Email him, and follow him on Twitter.

Posted Jan 28 2010
Posted Jan 28 2010
Posted Jan 28 2010
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74 Comments
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Up shiiiit Creek
SCum school located in the butt crack of LA!
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If I had the opportunity that Tim Floyd did...I'd do the same thing. There is millions of dollars in contracts at stake in the top college programs. If you need to cheat in order to recruit good players, that in turn will get you a multi-million dollar extension, then you take the chance. Tim Floyd was never jeopardizing a hall of fame career, and he has no legacy that he is tarnishing. He's simply a better than average coach that cheated to get a piece of the top teir money. And lets be honest...by breaking the rules, it's not like he broke the law. He still gets to keep the salary he has earned so far, and will probably end up coaching some mid major team in a few years and could still end up having as successful a coaching career as he would have if he had never cheated at all. Like I said, he's still an above average coach...and there are plenty of mediocre programs willing to pay him decent money to improve their programs.
That's the problem with NCAA violations. They impact the school, and there is not enough punishment towards the coaches or administrators who are guilty. If the NCAA could implement 5 year suspensions or even lifetime bans on coaches for major violations, only then will coaches think twice about cheating. Until then, why not take the risk. You can be the best coach, but without recruiting talent, you can only demand so much money. But if you can land the top recruits in the nation, you can be like Billy Donovan and demand nearly $4M per...If we find out next year that Donovan paid players...who cares...he's already got over 15M in the bank and he'll find his next coaching gig in the near future.
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Pete Carroll is as dirty as they come and he still has a job. Howland is the only clean guy with a clean program in LA, but those four glorious letters "U-C-L-A" do much of the recruiting for themselves. Time for an 8-clap. . . Go Bruins, but let's not kick $C while they're down. Let them continue to hang themselves.
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