Floyd can make USC basketball a big deal

It could be that the BCS wasn’t the only sports mega-deal drawn up on a cocktail napkin. It could be that USC’s basketball future took a similar path.

Consider the scenario: Athletic Director Mike Garrett, in a quiet lounge with Lou and Helene Galen, who are pondering writing the big check that would finally build a basketball arena for the Trojans.

Garrett senses the time is right. He leans forward, looks each of the Galens in the eye, and says, “If you build it, they will come. Matter of fact, if you build it, O.J. will come.”

When the Galens return from their respective restrooms and Garrett has had time to explain that he meant O.J. Mayo, a hotshot high school prospect, the deal is consummated.

Now, the Galens have built it, and a classy place it is, on the corner of Jefferson and Figueroa, with a price tag of $147 million.

Now it falls to Tim Floyd to fill the Galen Center.

Floyd, 52, the second-year Trojans coach, seems perfect for that task. He is aware that his job is lots easier because his team no longer plays in a dump, a.k.a. the L.A. Sports Arena. He is also aware that, traditionally, basketball at USC is about as high-profile as hockey at Florida State. Athletes around the USC campus tend more toward thick necks than long arms.

Floyd is also aware that, a few miles away in Westwood, the athletes tend more the other way, and Pauley Pavilion is home to 11 NCAA basketball title banners, as well as hardware from a run to second place as recently as April.

Ben Howland has the Bruins cooking, has them ranked No. 1 right now, and Floyd knows where the second-fiddle seat in basketball has been in this town for decades.

Also, like everyone else in basketball, he has been touched by John Wooden’s Bruins aura and legacy.

“I grew up in Hattiesburg, Miss.,” he says, “and when I was about 14, I used to cut lawns to get extra money for bus fare so I could go to one of the summer camps where John Wooden was teaching.”

Still, to Floyd’s credit, he did not take the USC job to go 18-12 and make sure the alums aren’t embarrassed when they come to casually watch and eagerly talk about next year’s football team. His goal is to give USC the whole enchilada, excellence in both major sports, currently like Ohio State and Florida.

“Exactly,” he says. “That is exactly my thinking.”

He doesn’t expect this to happen overnight. His first season, he was 17-13, beating North Carolina, UCLA and Arizona, and running up a nine-game winning streak in the middle. This season, after Monday night’s loss at Kansas, USC is 5-2, with the Pacific 10 Conference opener Dec. 28 against Washington at Galen.

The nonconference games have been neither attractive nor well-attended. So far, USC’s faithful have not come.

“You have to earn it,” Floyd says. “You can’t demand it, you can’t just talk about it. You have to earn it. And we will.”

This would be brave, predictable talk coming from somebody without a pedigree. Floyd has one.

In the late 1990s, he took Iowa State to three straight 20-win seasons and got the Cyclones to No. 4 at one point in 1997.

He left for the front office of the Chicago Bulls, then took the coaching job when Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan departed, leaving the cupboard bare. Floyd stayed on for portions of four frustrating seasons.

He had one more NBA job, taking the New Orleans Hornets to the playoffs in his one season there, 2003-04.

Now, so dedicated to the task he has taken on here, Floyd says the USC basketball job will be his last.

“If it means till age 60, or to age 70,” he says, “this is it.”

He also says that he wants to restore some of the lost legacy of Trojans basketball. To that end, he invited former players to the team’s second game in the Galen Center, a 69-63 victory over St. Mary’s, and 115 of them showed up.

“We had them each shoot a layup,” Floyd says, laughing at the age-old USC promises of a better facility. “They were all told they would be playing in a new building, so now they were.”

He also says that, once the conference season begins, he hopes to honor some past Trojans stars, the likes of Bill Sharman, John Block, Paul Westphal and more, at games.

“We need to let people know there is a history of great players at USC,” Floyd says.

Getting people to recognize that basketball history is a tough task, and getting it to matter to them is even tougher.

Floyd doesn’t even pause.

“We’ll get it done here,” he says. “Three, four years from now, people will look back and say that they missed out on things by not being here. It’s a journey for us. But the more we win, the better we play, the more they’ll come to watch.”

Conference games figure to draw better. The UCLA game at Galen on Jan. 13 should sell all 10,258 seats. And next season, there will be O.J., Ovinton J’Anthony Mayo, to pack ‘em in.

O.J. is expected to stay one season while auditioning for the NBA, but who knows? Miracles do happen. Maybe he’ll become enthralled with his English lit courses and stay around longer.

Long-term, USC basketball probably doesn’t need miracles. It now has, thanks to the Galens and a smart veteran named Tim Floyd, a solid foundation.