Staying in loop serious business for Boatright

Ryan Boatright figured he'd already proved he was nobody's fool. Neither, apparently, is Tim Floyd.

When Boatright's mom, Tanesha, texted him Wednesday with news Floyd might be leaving his coaching job at the University of Southern California for Arizona, he thought it was just another April Fool's Day joke.

"My grandpa had already called me that day trying to get me with an (unrelated) April Fool's Day joke and he couldn't get me," the East Aurora sophomore said. "I figured they were trying to get me again. I didn't believe it at first."

When he got home from a spring break workout and saw (and heard) for himself, the reports on ESPN, he believed.

Floyd, a former Bulls coach, made national headlines two years ago when he offered Boatright a basketball scholarship after seeing him play at a camp at USC. The youngster had just finished eighth grade.

On Thursday came news that Floyd had turned down the Arizona offer and would honor the remaining three years of his contract (reportedly at an annual salary of $800,000).

"Hopefully, they'll add a year or two. That would be great," Floyd said.

Ah, so there's the rub. Can you blame him?

After winning the Pac-10 tournament title and taking his team to its third straight NCAA tournament, Floyd is working all the angles. He also took a call from Memphis, which has an opening.

At the same news conference, the 55-year-old Floyd said the USC job would be his last. According to The Associated Press's report, he said the same thing last year after turning down an offer for the Louisiana State job and got a little testy when reminded of that.

Boatright and his family, though, aren't troubled, even though they've been going back and forth wondering what might happen next in SoCal.

"I was getting text messages (Wednesday) flooding my phone like water," Tanesha Boatright said. "But (Floyd) has to do what's best for his family.

"When Tim made the offer (to Ryan), he said that anything could happen, that he might not even be at USC when Ryan graduated (from high school). That's why it was a verbal commitment."

And that's why Boatright will eventually do what's right for him and his family.

"If he was interested in me in eighth grade, he should still be interested because I'm three times better (as a player) now than I was then," Boatright said when he thought Floyd might be headed to Arizona.

"Plus, I made my commitment to Tim Floyd."

That may be, but Boatright also knows once he signs a National Letter of Intent, that commitment is to the school, not its coach.

He can't sign such a letter until his senior year in high school anyway, during the weeklong early signing period in November or during a 14-day window in April.

Until then?

"It's been a little nerve-wracking," Tanesha Boatright said. "But like I told Ryan, all you've got to do is keep your grades up, keep working hard and practicing to get better."

She's not kidding about that, either.