Tim Floyd vs. Andy Enfield

This is it exactly. They all expect the cheating and they all engage it, to some form or fashion. It's the guys who cross certain other lines, some of them based on unwritten rules, that are universally despised.

 

So Tim Floyd is the Atlanta Braves of college basketball coaches?

 

They should try to fuck each other's wives.

 

College basketball assistant coaches are a very tight breed for the most part, even those from rival schools. They nibble on hot dogs up in the stands and play the same low-stakes gambling games ("guess the combined last number of both teams' scores - with the payout at each timeout" is a favorite when scouting high school or other college games).

They gossip about openings.

It's the ultimate networking atmosphere because they could get canned at anytime. They all know they serve at the whim of the head coach and the W-L record.

This is also what got Bruce Pearl blackballed for a decade from major schools when he was an assistant at Iowa and taped a conversation with an Illinois assistant. What he did wasn't illegal but it was seen as breaking the code.

College coaches, in general, look out for each other. I've seen fired coaches at major colleges with no other good prospects get picked up as the last assistant in the NBA. Keeps them in the circus even if they just hold a clipboard.

Enfield did most of his time as an NBA assistant. He wasn't driving around New Hampshire to recruit Division III guys to play at Middlebury, for example. He wasn't ducking gunfire in Chicago to pull a kid to play at IUPUI.

So when these college basketball lifers see him come in and get into a tiff with Tim Floyd - who was cleared of wrongdoing at USC - I could see how it would chap them.

The lifers are Ed Harris in Glengarry Glen Ross while Enfield is Alec Baldwin.

 

I think that's fair. From my side, having known Enfield since he was 12, he's basically a goofy but good guy who is still pinching himself. He's going to make mistakes.