Floyd says he is staying at USC

USC Coach Tim Floyd this morning declined to address a report saying he had been contacted by Louisiana State officials regarding their vacant basketball coaching position.

Asked on the Pacific 10 Conference teleconference whether LSU officials had contacted him, Floyd said, “I would give you the same response I’ve given you the previous five times you’ve asked the question: This is my last job.”

Told that his response didn’t answer the question, Floyd said, “I just answered the question. This is my last job at SC, OK?”

A consultant in the coaching search who has met with LSU officials in Baton Rouge said this morning the school’s top choice remained Virginia Commonwealth Coach Anthony Grant, who has close ties to a Tigers athletic administrator involved in the hunt for John Brady’s replacement.

Grant, formerly longtime assistant under Billy Donovan at Florida, guided the Rams to the second round of the NCAA tournament in 2007 during his first season as a college head coach. VCU (24-7) lost to William & Mary on Sunday in a semifinal of the Colonial Athletic Assn. tournament and is considered a “bubble” team for the NCAA tournament.

“They want somebody who is going to be there for 15 years,” said the consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I think Anthony is their guy, and that’s who they’re going to get.”

Other potential candidates for the LSU opening include Massachusetts’ Travis Ford, Washington State’s Tony Bennett, Missouri’s Mike Anderson, Southern Illinois’ Chris Lowery and Tigers’ interim Coach Butch Pierre.

The consultant said Floyd’s expected price tag, which he estimated from $1.5 million to $2 million per year, would preclude LSU from hiring him. The coach, who is in the third year of the five-year contract he initially signed in January 2005, has a reported annual base salary of $850,000 at USC.

Another source in Baton Rouge with ties to Floyd said the coach told him that while the LSU job was attractive in part because his elderly mother lived in neighboring Mississippi and his wife’s parents reside in northern Louisiana, he wanted to keep his word to USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett when he said the Trojans job would be his last.

Garrett, through a USC spokesman, declined comment, as did Eddie Nunez, LSU’s associate athletic director for operations.

Floyd’s Louisiana connections run deep. Growing up, he found summer employment as a gopher for the New Orleans Saints, and he graduated from Louisiana Tech. He coached at the University of New Orleans for six years and later guided the New Orleans Hornets to the NBA playoffs during the 2003-04 season.

Neither LSU Athletic Director Skip Bertman nor Martin Newton, a Nike basketball employee assisting with the coaching search, returned calls seeking comment.

ben.bolch@latimes.com