The NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE reports that’s what Tim Floyd claims USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett said to him after news of Floyd’s alleged $1,000 payment to Rodney Guillory (to ensure O.J. Mayo’s USC commit) hit the media in May.

(Mike Garrett: modicum of professionalism while under fire)

USC has since self-imposed significant sanctions on its basketball program because of NCAA violations the school claims happened on Floyd’s watch.  Floyd though now says he did nothing wrong and that he left because of Garrett’s decided lack of interpersonal skills.

What’s more entertaining, Garrett’s delightfully consistent buffoonry or Floyd’s blanket denial after the school he was coaching punished itself?!

Good times.

Floyd:

 ”Why I left was not in any way an admission of guilt. It was a complete testament to a lack of support by my administration and how we were treated after four years of doing everything the right way. And that is what I’ve gone on record as saying. The day the story broke, my athletic director called me and asked me where I was.

“I happened to be in New Orleans after being there for seven months. He asked me if I’d read the story. I said, ‘Yes. And I did not do what I’m accused of doing.’ Two, ‘Where are you?’ ‘I’m in New Orleans.’ The third thing he said was, ‘You need to get your ass back to Los Angeles, so I can decide what I’m going to do with you.’

“That did not register well with me, did not sit well with me. I always said I would only stay at a place as long as I was wanted there. It was a situation where the athletic director was more worried about himself than our program.

Best part: Floyd said that the last six weeks he was at USC Garrett would only communicate with him via courier.

“The last six weeks I was there, the only communication I had with my athletic director was through courier. A knock on my door at 10:30 at night with a courier I’d have to sign for something, send it back, then hire an attorney to respond to my boss. Or a knock on my office door, with a courier handing me a letter. Quite frankly, I didn’t feel like the other coaches at that university were being treated like I was being treated, and it was all about the protection of the athletic director and his own institutional control investigation.”

Floyd really sticks the needle in with the “institutional control investigation” missive. As the NCAA ponders future sanctions against the USC hoops and football program, word on the street is that the four-year investigation will yield penalties derived from a litany of smaller violations. Those myriad minor slip-ups will lead to stiff NCAA sanctions for the football program and be cited as an “institutional control” issue - directly reflecting on Garrett.

While Garrett looks as if he might be under the gun, it’s common knowledge among USC insiders that he’ll be forced to “retire” in August when USC President Steven Sample does the same. His departure is not a matter of if but when.

Meanwhile Floyd has a cush assistant’s gig in New Orleans as the kids he lured to Los Angeles are stuck playing for a school that banned itself from March Madness this year because of alleged violations by the coach.