So said Tim Floyd today when asked if he’d hire Eustachy to be one of his assistant coaches with the New Orleans Hornets.

Floyd, who was named the Hornets’ head coach Monday, told Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio that he has visited with Eustachy about joining his staff, adding that he’d hire the former Iowa State head coach if he’s interested.

But Floyd, who preceded Eustachy as the Cyclones’ coach, stressed that it’s Larry’s call.

That likely means that Eustachy needs to decide if his future is as an NBA assistant or as a collegiate coach.

To me, it looks like a tough decision. My gut feeling is that Eustachy still wants another shot at the college game.

Then again, maybe he needs to take whatever he can get at this stage, considering everything he went through at Iowa State before being told he was no longer welcome on the Cyclones’ bench or in the coaches’ offices.

• Speaking of Floyd, I guess he and Sam Smith of the Chicago Tribune don’t have many Diet Cokes—or anything else—at the same table.

In today’s paper, Smith wrote: "The New Orleans Hornets must feel proud. They have hired the worst coach in NBA history, Tim Floyd.

"Not that I disagree, but don’t take my word for it. It’s right there in the NBA record book, a record of 49-190 in about 3 ½ seasons with the Bulls.

"So let me see if I have this straight: You fire Paul Silas, the winningest coach in franchise history, who was 208-155….You say Silas has taken the team as far as he can and you need a coach to get to that elusive next level. And you hire Tim Floyd?…."

Later in his stinging column, Smith wrote: "Floyd arrived after the bitter breakup of the Bulls’ championship teams in 1998, so no one expected him to make the playoffs or win many games. But he helped create an atmosphere of rancor, bitterness and losing around the Bulls that only now is dissipating.

"Although Floyd, 49, was successful in college at New Orleans and Iowa State, his wicked temper and con games were out of place in the NBA.

"He rarely worked on the floor at practice unless the owner was around and was always quick to run to the side of an influential columnist making a rare trip to practice. He seemed like he could charm you out of your wallet, or perhaps $4.8 million over three years…."

Me? I liked Floyd when I worked with him at Iowa State. I covered the first game he ever coached for the Cyclones—an 88-71 victory over Illinois State in the Big Island Invitational at Hilo, Hawaii on Nov. 25, 1994—and I covered his last game—a 74-55 loss to Missouri in the Big 12 postseason tournament at Kansas City on March 8, 1998.

I wish him well in the New Orleans job. Despite what happened in Chicago, I think the guy can coach.

• I see Tim Schmitt has given pointblank’s latest Jackass award to Rekha Basu for what he called her "absurd" column on big media.

A guy who contributes frequently to this column was among others laughing at Basu’s column. The guy sent me copies of an e-mail exchange he had with Basu.

Part of his e-mail said: "…..(Gannett) took over the locally owned Des Moines newspaper, thinned out the (newsroom) either by dismissal, early retirement or frustrated resignation and replaced these writers with wire service accounts and feature stories that ran weeks ago in other papers.

"So I had to chuckle a bit when I read a column bashing ‘big media’ written by a Gannett employee and published in a Gannett newspaper. A bit of the old ‘pot calling the kettle black,’ don’t you think?"

Basu answered the guy by e-mail. I don’t want to start printing another columnist’s e-mail messages that don’t involve me, it’s a good bet the guy wasn’t impressed with the generic reply he received.

• It’s good to see that the news has finally reached the local paper that the Iowa State-Iowa football game will be televised by Fox Sports Net-Chicago at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 13 in Ames. That information was the lead item in this column May 29.

• My West Coast Correspondent has been earning his money lately. He tells me that Mike Price might have another football coaching life after all.

Price, you’ll recall, is the grandfatherly-looking (well, sometimes anyway) guy who was fired before ever coaching a game as Alabama’s coach.

It seems Price wanted to have some fun in a strip bar or two in Pensacola, Fla.. Somehow one of the strippers wound up in his hotel room and charged $1,000 or so worth of room service to Price.

Alabama officials didn’t think that was too smart an idea, so they fired Price.

Now, however, people are wondering if Price might get a call if John Mackovic is fired after or during Arizona’s 2003 season.

At least some people like the idea of Price getting the job in Tucson.

"We’d welcome him here," Aharon Ezzleston, the doorman at TD’s Showclub East (I’m assuming that’s a strip joint), told the Arizona Republic. "I didn’t think what he did was that wrong anyway."

Wouldn’t that be great—Lute Olson and Price coaching at the same school?

• Then there’s the story my West Coast Correspondent sent concerning Mal Florence, who died last month after having worked at the Los Angeles Times for more than 50 years.

"Mal was golfing several years ago and ran into O.J. Simpson, who presumably was looking for Nicole’s killer while smoothing out his five-iron," my West Coast Correspondent wrote.

"Mal, of course, covered USC when O.J. was running wild and they shared the Trojan bond. When O.J. saw Mal, the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Mal, I didn’t do it.’

"’Good enough for me!’" Mal said.

• A longtime editor and reporter at the local paper, now retired, doesn’t seem to be impressed with the new West Des Moines, Clive and Waukee editions being published three times a week.

"Apparently they have hired a bunch of young—meaning low-paid—people to put it out," the man wrote me in an e-mail.

"They must think Henry Phillips is making way too much money with his shopper, and they want some of it."

Phillips publishes the Press Citizen weeklies that have been loaded with ads and news in recent years.