UTEP coach Tim Floyd didn’t pull any punches regarding USC’s Andy Enfield Thursday night.
Floyd, who coached USC from 2005-9, ripped into Enfield for his comments about El Paso, Texas in a recent Men’s Journal article and his involvement with top recruit Isaac Hamilton.
“I damn didn’t sure appreciate the comments that he made last week publicly about the city of El Paso, Texas, where my grandparents were born and raised, where my father was born and raised and played at Texas Western,” Floyd said Thursday in Paradise Island, Bahamas, according to The Gazette. “Where I’ve lived 22 years of my life. It’s a fabulous city. My reaction (Wednesday) was more about the city of El Paso than the previous part. I’ll just leave it at that.
“His comments in that damn magazine were totally inappropriate, totally inappropriate.”
Enfield told Men’s Journal that Floyd “shows up every day at work and realizes he lives in El Paso, Texas, and he’s pissed off that he didn’t get the USC job two months ago.”
He also fired shots at UCLA coach Steve Alford in the article.
Floyd also went off on the Hamilton situation. The 6-foot-4 California guard initially signed with UTEP, but later asked to be released, saying his grandmother was ill. Floyd refused to release him and accused Enfield of tampering. Hamilton is now at UCLA, but won’t be eligible to play games until next season.
“I lobbed a call into Coach Enfield back in April and felt like there was tampering going on with our McDonald’s All-American Isaac Hamilton,” Floyd said. “Sure enough three months later with USC on his Facebook page, (Hamilton) backed out of his letter of intent. He called, we discussed that in a very serious vein. He asked me not to turn them in and that they just wouldn’t take him. But we didn’t end up with him and that was a lick.”
For his part, Enfield tried to apologize to Floyd in the Bahamas.
“I regret that the situation happened and I apologize to the USC fans, but this is about the players,” Enfield said Wednesday night. “We’re moving on.”
USC and UTEP won’t meet in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
The dustup between the two coaches was first reported by Seth Davis.
Photo: The Gazette
