UTEP Mens Basketball Recruiting

[SisyphusMiner]

Lofton transferring out of La Tech.  Obviously not to us, but helps clear the path to CUSA championship for us

[kyyote]

I don't want easier paths.  I actually want harder paths and teams good enough to win even though the path is harder.  It appears that for the time being, the conference will remain intact for next year, although, I believe the Sun Bolt teams will be playing Sun Bolt football.  C-USA is struggling to maintain its very existence.  All of the conferences that we have been left in were left because of the lack of respect of bottom teams and not because of the quality of the top teams.  It will happen again and for once in my lifetime I want UTEP to be in the top half and also to be good not just the tallest guy at the little people's convention.  The respect for the teams about to join and the ones remaining after the upcoming year is and will be critical.  We need so very badly to be able to claim some respect before the breakup and to lead the charge after the reformation.  Easy paths will only reinforce the perception of weakness.  We already need to be looking for the building a reputation of hard paths. 

Sorry.  It is Sunday morning in the Dead Period.

[Chanson]

Well said, KY. The weaker the conference, the weaker the results at the big dance conference.
I do disagree with the "Dead Period" as we know it. No I'm not referring to a bad menstrual cycle, but college sports after the NCAA Tournament. The new portal rules has killed the dead period & has brought an unexpected interest to recruiting. I don't really agree with the craziness that it comes with, but coaches are now scrambling for player losses, coaching losses, & thier replacements. Recruiting was stressful in itself, but it just doubled.

[Chanson]

Started to get bored & read some Digs. Yikes. Big mistake.
Woe is me attitudes & Trolls litering the board. Everyone there still live in the 90s & can't keep up with change. The solution is not to complain, but stay ahead of the rules & adjust. Just take notes from Dimel.
Thank God this site has more intelligence. Hell, even the Cartel schools are struggling to keep up.

[SisyphusMiner]

Yes Chanson, agree.  I lurk at the other site for breaking news, but this is home.

Kyy, here's the thing.  Lofton stays or leaves, CUSA is still a 1 bid league next year.  Our one and only chance at making the NCAA tourney is to win the conference tourney.  Playing and hopefully beating name brand schools can help us in recruiting, but won't get us an at large.

[kyyote]

The game has changed. Golding just landed a school boy he has had on the radar for awhile. If the kid gets good he will move up. That will only stop when we get to the top. Then it will turn into lateral moves at the top. We don?t have to worry about it now. If we send a great product up we will establish a reputation for it. And Golding will be gone or we had better have a plan. I think we may have learned a little more from the recruiting of the kid rather than picking up an up and coming player looking to move up from the portal. It does indicate to coaches at the high school level that he wants them. It may indicate that he isn?t going to look for putting pieces together in total reboots.

I understand that. I want Lofton replaced by a much better player that helps his team beat cartel teams. And we are so good that we have to take a break from whipping cartel teams to whip the new guy, too. I want the new Cusa to be considered a tough enough league to be a multi bid conference. I want to be so good that other conferences want us and not want to ditch us. Again.

[Chanson]

I want everything you want, KY. It just can't happen like we are used to. I agree in not picking up highschoolers, but sometimes kids give loyalty to those who take a chance on them. I'm not sure what kind of upbringing this kid had, but we have to trust CJG. What I don't like is he has a kid & that is obviously where his priority is.
The 1 kid I know will stay is Onyema. His parents are quality & know the value of UTEP & Dl Paso. Sibley & Evans were not treated well from bigger programs while Kalu was given is the same situation as the highschool PG we picked up. Coach needs a good relationship with these kids & needs to win with them. That is where it starts.
We can't worry about other teams but ourselves. That is what will get us out of CUSA. That & money (Senter).

[SisyphusMiner]

The cartels have ensured the stratification they were looking for.  They don't mind a St Peter's happening but they are making darn sure St Peters or next year's Cinderella can't build on that success.  Manage to get to the Sweet Sixteen or worse yet, the Elite 8?  Your coach and every starting player will be gone the next season and you're trying to rebuild with nothing to sell recruits.

It is highly unlikely CUSA will ever be a multi bid league on a regular basis.  The "algorithms" in place to select teams are pre-weighted every year.  Big 10 gets the entire conference in every year, gets favorable seeding, and every year most drop out in the first or second round.  Why do they get so many in?  Because of their "brutal" schedule. 

Indiana got in.  Their marquee out of conference wins?  24 win Notre Dame, 17 win St Johns, 10 win Nebraska, then some in-conference wins against other overrated teams.  Indiana had a losing season in conference play.  But they are Indiana.

[kyyote]

i don't have any problem with school boys.  We have to move product up.  The NCAA used to protect the schools.  Now, it is as official as it can get without a certificate.  We are a minor league that feeds the triple A clubs.  We have to do our job well so that we get some crumbs.  The system is what it is, now.  I want us to do what it takes to not only survive in the new system, I want us to be so good at it that the team moves up-not just a trickle of players.  Getting out of C-USA isn't even a consideration for now.  We have spent the last 30 years or more steadily sifting lower and lower-as we have been the damned dead weight in them all.  We have reached absolute bottom.  There is no where to go.  The new CUSA will be the weakest conference in the country.  We the teams of the new CUSA must prove that to be wrong.  Luckily, WKU and MTU were left stuck here with us so the conference has a shred of respect left.  This year will give the teams staying a chance to make a statement that they aren't the grounds left in the cup by claiming that the teams leaving will leave us stronger.  It will at least give us a chance as a new and unknown quantity instead of the leftovers of a conference.  I can worry and do worry about other teams.  We are in a life raft with the other teams.  We need to do great-each of us to begin our climb up.  Ours and UTEP's. 
UTEP has one thing to do.  Win.  Winning is the only way we can survive and maybe even grow.  Winning will be measured by how many games we win, who we beat, and how many players we send up.  If we do that well enough we may at some time establish that C-USA is worthy of teams aspiring to join and not leave at this level.  If we do our part and just win it will seem like we can't get ahead because we keep losing our best players-that is the new mindset we must come to understand and embrace until the team itself can be moved up en mass.  I want Golding gone in two years.  We aren't going to go to paying two mil, so I want him gone because he was so good.  And I want his better replacement brought in, but a step up each time until UTEP is the top team in every way in the conference.  Then the team moves up naturally. 

It occurs to me that the minor league baseball analogy may have more to think about.  The fans see the finished product, but those involved know what goes on behind the scenes.  I thought what if we had an affiliation with the Big12 where we sent up and they sent players our way.   And then of course I thought well that probably is already how it happens on an informal basis.  Not the affiliation part but then that may actually be going on on an informal basis already. 

[SisyphusMiner]

Relegation has been happening for the last 20 years, but not based on actual performance.  I think it might have a lot to do with tv market.

I think there's a very real chance that the cartels have destroyed the brand in their greed.  I think there's a very real chance that we are all fighting for a piece of an ever diminishing pie.  I personally have completely lost interest in college sports outside of UTEP.  I've already lost all interest in professional sports for different but similar reasons.

It may quite literally come down to regional minor leagues feeding the majors in college sports.  I've made similar comments before, but I think when you find the game is stacked against you, you simply refuse to play their game and make your own.

form a minor league.  Structure coaches contracts so that you get paid really high dollar amounts when they move up.  Charge cartel schools for the scholly for a player that moves up.  Help form a player's union that files a class action lawsuit or a strike to guarantee the scholly value of a player moving down -- G'town wants to let a player go that's not working out?  OK, but they owe him the $50k per year that his scholly was worth until he graduates.  Him personally.  He uses that to pay his tuition at the school he moves to and pockets the rest.

Just gotta stop with our Stockholm Syndrome.

[Chanson]

I'm assuming we are keeping Kennedy. He has really hravitated to El Paso & he is dating my buddies niece. That is 3 4☆ kids in KK, Sibley, & Evans.
Not bad

[kyyote]

I have been watching verbalcommits constantly as the number of tp players has swelled to over 1300 and grows by the minute. What has me wondering at all of the players going here and transferring to there, none of our players have found a home yet.  So these guys weren?t going somewhere else.  They were throwing a line in the water.  I figure there is nibbling going on and maybe even some throw backs looking for bigger fish. But the longer they are out there the more they start to stink and people begin to wonder why they are still there.

[SisyphusMiner]

We've talked about how this is a new system and the coaches have to adjust.  But it's new to the players too and they are younger and less mature.

In the case of JB, SB, and TV however, I'd imagine if no one comes knocking then it's off to Europe.  The rest of the guys were probably strongly encouraged to put their names out there.

[kyyote]

It's new to this old fart, too and I am having trouble with it, too.  There's all of this mystery about who is just seeing if there is interest and who would be welcomed back.  The time that has passed with no changes for our players and the lack of acquisition that is not nearly enough to replace all if they all left leaves me wondering. 

As for your thinking about JB, SB, and TV I am wondering just a bit about that, too.  If they can't attract a job, a tryout, with a cartel team anywhere I am not absolutely sure they wouldn't be faced with a choice of it maybe being better off to play one more almost all-star season at UTEP? Not saying, just wondering.  I would think that all of this has had an affect on the professional leagues, too.  It would seem to me that it would be making more cartel players realize that it can be an indication of their worth on the market as a pretest trial.

[Chanson]

Boum being the highest scorer in CUSA & JB being a long scoring 1 player, they are waiting for the right team to say YES to. TV will either play back up to a bigger team or start for a UTEP equivalent or lesser school. Everyone else will be looking for any kind of scholarship.