The landscape of the Pac-10 continues to transform as 2009’s coaching carousel continues with this somewhat surprising move – Tim Floyd to Arizona
After unsuccessfully trying to woo Rick Pitino and reportedly going after Mark Few and Jeff Capel, Arizona is set to name Tim Floyd as its new head coach according to reports.
Fox Sports reports that Floyd is still weighing the offer.
Floyd, 55, has spent the last four seasons at USC and is 85-50 in his tenure in Southern California. He led the Trojans to three NCAA tournament appearances — including a Sweet 16 appearance in 2007.
According to a source close to the situation, Floyd — as of Wednesday night — is still deliberating on whether to accept Arizona’s offer.
Floyd’s Trojans won the 2009 Pac-10 Conference Tournament Championship and qualified for the NCAA Tournament by overcoming a 15 point deficit to Arizona State. The Sun Devils and All-American guard James Harden only scored six points in the last eight minutes and ten seconds of the game en route to mustering only 63 points for the day. They scored only four points in the last 7:37, which included only one field goal in the last 7:37. The Trojans took the lead with about 30 seconds to go in the game and continued to ride their momentum into the NCAA Tournament.
I thought USC was able to pull a surprisingly good move in their initial hire of Floyd four years ago, so it will be interesting to see where the Trojans choose to turn. Jobs at Georgia and Memphis also remain open.
As Andy Katz discusses in the above video, Floyd’s move could open the door for the dominoes to fall in a manner that sends Pitt’s Jamie Dixon to USC, opening the Pitt job for Sean Miller. First, such a move would suck for NC State as Sean Miller is clearly emerging as a top candidate for our job in the next couple of years if Coach Lowe were to unfortunately not show some improvement.
Excuse me while I continue to be baffled by these reporters. Katz, like Seth Davis and Greg Doyel and so many others, is usually fast to tout the attributes of former NC State coach, Herb Sendek. In this report he immediately mentions Miller and totally ignores Sendek as a candidate for Pitt. Hell…Miller coached for Sendek, who is also originally from Pittsburgh!
Sendek was (supposedly) the subject of speculation around the Pitt job when Ben Howland left for UCLA. Although the speculation was later proven to be a manufactured and appear to be an opportunistic PR stunt by Camp Fowler/Sendek to make Herb appear desired by other programs, it still baffles me that Herb could be such an amazing coach yet these media-guys who love him so much never even think of him as a potential candidate for any of these jobs where is obviously a natural fit. I wonder why that is?
