On the phone Monday night from Baton Rouge, La., the pain in Tim Floyd’s voice was clear.

“I’ve been here with the mother, helping her make the funeral arrangements,” he said. “Right now she has more than she can handle.”

Floyd, the basketball coach for USC and former coach of the Bulls, still couldn’t quite accept it.

Ryan Francis was dead.

A 19-year-old, shot three times while seated in the back seat of a car.

“Five blocks from where he and his mother lived,” Floyd said. “They were at a stoplight. Apparently there was this guy who had a beef with the driver of the car Ryan was in.

“The driver turned right. That put the gunman directly behind the car. I guess he fired three shots. They went right through the trunk and struck Ryan in the back.”

A few hours later, on Saturday morning, a phone call came to the coach’s house. It was from Ryan’s mother, Paulette.

Floyd was in Las Vegas, attending a coaching clinic. His wife, Beverly, took the call, and Paulette broke the news. The two women had gotten acquainted when USC first began to show a strong interest in her son.

Hardly any other major school was in pursuit of Ryan. He was too small in some coaches’ eyes – listed at 5 feet 11 inches but, in his stocking feet, 5-9, tops. Louisiana-Lafayette was interested in him, but that was about it.

Floyd had a good friend, however, a former assistant of his now at Loyola of New Orleans, who kept assuring him that this Francis kid could really play.

At his high school, Glen Oaks, he averaged 22 points in his senior year, and his team didn’t lose a game. It had a record of 36-0 and won Louisiana’s 4-A state title.

Floyd knew the area, having once been coach of the University of New Orleans team as well as the NBA’s Hornets. He wasn’t familiar with Francis, however, but he was more than happy to take a chance.

Francis’ freshman year could not have gone better. He started at point guard. He and the Trojans went 17-13, the school’s first winning season in four years. He placed in the Pac-10 Conference’s top 10 in assists and steals.

The last opponent to beat rival UCLA before the NCAA tournament was USC, in part because Francis spent the whole night in the face of Bruins star Jordan Farmar.

“The best ball defender I have ever coached,” Floyd called Francis, “at any level.”

At a team banquet on April 13, an award went to Francis for the player who best exemplifies 110-percent effort on the court.

Francis left it with a USC teammate a few days ago when he went back to Baton Rouge to spend Mother’s Day with his single mom.

Paulette couldn’t stand being away from her only child. They spoke on the phone every day. She worked long hours at a convenience store and drove to Los Angeles twice to see him, not being able to afford to fly.

“It’s as close a mother-son relationship as I’ve been witness to in all my years,” Floyd said.

They were more than close. Paulette had begun making plans to move to California to be near him.

In the week before Ryan’s death, she was in the process of lining up a place to live and a job.

“Two days away,” Floyd said.