Tim Floyd Returning To UTEP As Head Coach

Carolina Kat Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:05 pm

Updated: March 30, 2010, 2:23 PM ET

Floyd returning to UTEP as coach

By Andy Katz
ESPN.com

UTEP has hired former USC coach Tim Floyd and will introduce him at a news conference in El Paso at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

Floyd was the popular choice of UTEP boosters to replace Tony Barbee, who left to take over at Auburn after leading the Miners to a Conference USA regular-season title and a NCAA tournament appearance.

Sources said UTEP officials were on the way to pick up Floyd early Tuesday afternoon for Tuesday's news conference. Floyd is a currently a New Orleans Hornets assistant coach.

Floyd was at UTEP as an assistant under the late Don Haskins from 1978-86. He has had a lengthy coaching career as a head coach at Idaho, New Orleans, Iowa State, the post-Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls and the Hornets before going back to college in 2005 with USC. Floyd was 85-50 at USC, going 39-33 in the Pac-10 and winning the conference tournament in 2009.

Floyd resigned in 2009 after four seasons at USC, amid allegations that he committed a violation in the recruitment of O.J. Mayo. It has been alleged that Floyd gave Mayo's handler Rodney Guillory a $1,000 cash payment. Floyd has denied the allegations.

Floyd and USC, which conducted its own probe and imposed its own sanctions on the program, met with the NCAA's Committee on Infractions in February. A decision is due from the committee sometime in the next month.

Multiple sources told ESPN.com that UTEP was assured before hiring Floyd that he would not be individually penalized in connection with the USC allegations.

UTEP would not be prohibited from hiring Floyd, even if he were to receive a show-cause penalty from the NCAA -- in which any school hiring him would have to make its case for hiring him to the NCAA. But UTEP would only have to appear before the Committee on Infractions to see if any other sanctions will be placed upon him.

The Miners (26-7, 15-1 C-USA this season) lost to Butler in the first round of the NCAA tournament. They are expecting to lose center Derrick Caracter to the NBA draft.

Andy Katz is a senior writer for ESPN.com. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.