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Tim Floyd  

Tim Floyd is the men's basketball head coach at the University of Texas -- El Paso.

Tim Floyd was named University of Texas -- El Paso's 18th men's basketball head coach on March 30, 2010 -- returning to the place where he landed his first full-time coaching position nearly 30 years earlier.

Floyd, an assistant coach at UTEP from 1978-86, has posted a 368-207 record in 18 seasons as a college head coach. His teams have made eight NCAA Tournament appearances and four trips to the NIT. Floyd's previous collegiate coaching stops include Idaho (1986-88), New Orleans (1988-94), Iowa State (1994-98) and USC (2005-09).

Floyd led Iowa State and USC to the "Sweet 16" of the NCAA Tournament in 1997 and 2007 respectively, and New Orleans advanced three rounds in the NIT in 1990. Floyd's teams have also won three conference tournaments (New Orleans 1990, Iowa State 1996, USC 2009), while posting eleven 20-win seasons.

Floyd was also a head coach in the National Basketball Association for five seasons with the Chicago Bulls (1998-2002) and New Orleans Hornets (2003-04). He led a major rebuilding effort with the Bulls following the departure of coach Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Floyd directed the Hornets to the 2004 NBA playoffs, where they lost to Miami in a seven-game first round series.

Floyd directed the 2011-12 Miners, a team with only one senior (Gabriel McCulley) and seven freshmen, to 15 wins. UTEP beat the top three teams in Conference USA (Memphis, Southern Miss, Tulsa), as well as NCAA Tournament participant NM State. The Miners also knocked off Clemson and Auburn at the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu.

Despite battling a severe lack of experience and enduring injuries to big men Cedrick Lang and Malcolm Moore, the Miners stood 7-6 in C-USA play before dropping their final three league games. Six of UTEP's nine C-USA losses came by nine points or less, and the Miners fell 11 points shy of going 10-6 in league play.

Three of UTEP's top four scorers were underclassmen, including Julian Washburn, who earned a spot on the Conference USA All-Freshman Team while averaging 11.2 points per game. Washburn was a four-time C-USA Freshman of the Week over the course of the season.

In his first season as UTEP's head coach, Floyd orchestrated a 25-10 mark, a berth in the Conference USA Tournament title game and the school's first NIT bid in five years. The Miners tied for second place in the C-USA standings with an 11-5 mark and lost in triple overtime at eventual regular season champion UAB. UTEP's backcourt featured a pair of All-Conference players in Randy Culpepper (19.3 ppg) and Julyan Stone, who concluded his career as the league leader with 714 career assists.

While severely depleted in the frontcourt following the departures of Derrick Caracter and Arnett Moultrie, the Miners didn't miss much of a beat in following up their 2009-10 NCAA Tournament season. UTEP posted a 19-3 mark at home, its most victories in the Haskins Center in 25 years, including a 74-47 triumph over C-USA Tournament champion Memphis.

Prior to returning to the Sun City, Floyd was an assistant coach with the New Orleans Hornets after setting school records by leading USC to three straight 20-win seasons and three consecutive NCAA Tournaments from 2007-09. Floyd posted 85 wins at USC, more than any other Trojan coach in a four-year period. He recorded his 300th college coaching victory on Feb. 7, 2008 at Washington. USC's 25 wins during the 2006-07 season were a school record.

Not only does Floyd have a reputation for being one of the top coaches in college basketball, but he has excelled at player development as well. Seventeen players have made it to the NBA in Floyd's 18 seasons as a college head coach, including three who did not play high school basketball.

Floyd began his coaching career as a student assistant at his alma mater, Louisiana Tech, in 1977 before moving on to UTEP where he was a part of the Miners' run to three NCAA Tournaments (1984-86) and three NITs (1980-81, 1983). While serving as UTEP's primary recruiter, Floyd put together classes of players that won five straight Western Athletic Conference titles (1983-87) and appeared in seven consecutive NCAA tournaments (1984-90).

In his first season as a college head coach at Idaho (1986-87), Floyd orchestrated a 16-14 record with a team coming off three straight last place finishes in the Big Sky Conference. Floyd was 35-25 in two seasons with the Vandals before moving to the University of New Orleans, where he engineered five postseason tournament appearances in six seasons. UNO averaged 21 victories under Floyd, who became one of just four NCAA Division I coaches to win four conference championships in their first five years at a school. He was twice named his conference's Coach of the Year at New Orleans (American South in 1989 and Sun Belt in 1993).

He compiled an 81-47 mark at Iowa State, becoming the only Cyclone coach to post three consecutive 20-win seasons and lead the team to three straight NCAA Tournament first round victories. Three of his teams ended the season ranked in the nation's top 20, including the 1997 squad that rose to as high as fourth in the country. ISU won a then-school record 24 games in his second season (1995-96). He was tabbed the Big Eight Coach of the Year and was runner-up for AP National Coach of the Year after leading the Cyclones to their first-ever Big Eight Tournament championship. In September of 2011, Floyd was inducted into the Iowa State Hall of Fame.

A native of Hattiesburg, Miss., Floyd spent two seasons as a walk-on at Southern Miss before earning a scholarship at Louisiana Tech. He received his bachelor's degree in health and physical education from Louisiana Tech in 1977. Growing up, Floyd worked summers for the New Orleans Saints, who held their training camp in Hattiesburg at the time.

Floyd and his wife, Beverly, have a daughter, Shannon. His daughter had a brief role and Floyd served as the basketball advisor for the 2006 movie "Glory Road," which chronicles UTEP's (then known as Texas Western College) drive to the historic 1966 national title.

Floyd's late father, Lee, was a member of UTEP's (then known as the College of Mines and Mettalurgy) 1941 Border Conference championship team and was also a head basketball coach at the college level. Lee Floyd is the second-winningest coach in Southern Miss history, fashioning a mark of 246-148 from 1949-54 and 1962-71.

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