TIM FLOYD CUTS OFF HIS JOHNSON

#1 will no longer be available to sc coach, whose refusal to guarantee now-departing Angelo Johnson a starting slot showed some sack (or did it?)

What good are a pack of trojans with no Johnson?

Back-up Point Guard Angelo Johnson has bailed on Tim Floyd and the usc Basketball team.  According to Floyd, Johnson gave him what amounted to an ultimatum:  Start me or trade me.  And, still according to Floyd, Floyd said that he couldn’t promise that, out of respect for the incoming players.

For once, Floyd is right.  In the past, Floyd has not exactly been a bastion of integrity, having hired family members of recruits, having been involved in the “Laker Tickets to O.J. Mayo” SCandal and cover-up, having given Rodney Guillory free range of the usc basketball offices, and having signed Lil’ Romeo just to land Demar Derozan.  But in this case — You just can’t let the inmates run the asylum. 

Why would a smart, talented, confident team player need a guarantee of Starting?  Whatever happened to EARNING it in practice?  But that would describe a Ben Howland player, not a guy like Johnson, who would have gotten plenty of playing time regardless.  By the way, THAT is why you cannot equate this situation to Chase Stanback leaving UCLA — Looking at the Nation’s #1 incoming recruiting class, Stanback wouldn’t have gotten a fraction of the minutes at UCLA that Johnson would have amassed at sc.

And let’s say that Johnson DID get the guarantee, and then it is obvious that some incoming Freshman is much more deserving of the spot.  Would Johnson step aside, for the good of the team?  Would he expect Floyd to ignore what every other player and coach can clearly see?  The whole idea of a starting guarantee is absurd.  Couldn’t he have at least just asked for a guarantee that he’d get CONSIDERATION for a starting spot?

Maybe he did ask that.  Or maybe, he never asked at all.  Just when Floyd was about to get the benefit of the doubt in a matter of “doing the right thing” — by not giving in to ridiculous player demands — ANOTHER possibility has emerged.  It has been hypothesized that Floyd may have engineered or even fabricated this entire scenario, just to purposely get rid of Johnson, in order to open up a scholarship for Alex Stephenson, the transfer from North Carolina.

That theory makes sense in light of what transpired earlier with Stephenson.  It was announced that he picked usc as his final destination, but then the reports were suddenly denied.  Coincidentally, sc didn’t have an available scholarship, and Floyd supposedly told Scott Wolf that by September, a scholarship would magically open up.

There is another player or two that could also be filling Floyd’s open hole, according to rumors.  However, the resident SCumbag on BZ who claims to have inside information over at Figueroa Tech, swears that this is NOT the case, and that Floyd did NOT want to lose Johnson.  Well, if that’s the case, Floyd has no one to blame but Floyd.  NOT for calling Johnson’s bluff-that-wasn’t-a-bluff, but for RECRUITING the type of sleazy character who would pull an ultimatum like that, in the first place.  It will be comical when Lil’ Romeo pulls the same stunt next year.

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While the trojans ARE losing Angelo Johnson, they are NOT, contrary to earlier reports, losing Mark Sanchez.  Sanchez was carted off the practice field after hurting his knee on Friday, but it is just a dislocated kneecap, so he will probably not miss any actual game time.  Just think how depressed Mitch Mustain is right now.

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