Basketball Team

[kyyote]

I purchased espn+ and cusa tv and have been able to watch the games.  Even with that ability, it has not been easy to get a handle on this team.  Well, for me.  One thing I think I feel pretty good about is how I think Don Haskins would feel about the defense.  I think he would think he was watching his team play defense.  He might even be just a touch envious.  Most of the time.  The team hits the boards, too.  And still get back on defense. 

Offensively, I see Golding putting the players in position to hit open easy shots.  I think there are natural shooters and there are athletes.  I was very athletic, quick hands and feet, but my shooting was in the general area.  My across the street neighbor was my age.  There were about 20 kids on the block and the school playground and courts were on the other side of my back fence.  Paul became the qb, ace pitcher, and star point guard on the NorCal Tournament Champion team.  I was a better defender than him, but he could shoot.  And handle the ball.  I think many of our players are great athletes but lack the shooter's touch.  The foul shooting may be an indication of it.

Think back to all of the teams Haskins had.  He always had some shooters to provide the offense outside of the paint.  Now, I ask myself if there is the outside shooting to provide offensive balance and to hit the easy open shots.  Hardy, maybe?  Givance is a great ball handler, but his shooting is kind of crazy.  He hits threes like a bomber but only sometimes so you can't rely on his offense.  It comes and goes.  In general, the offense doesn't have the punch to pull away from teams.  That is why missed free throws are so damaging.

Thinking about it, it seems to me that the team is probably just about a perfectly created team in Joe Goldings image.  I think he probably wouldn't be an attack guy, but would wear your ass out trying to kick his.

Final thought.  Onyema was raw.  Golding has worked on his defense and it shows.  I think that had to happen first.  I think he will become an offensive force with time.  I hope he stays at home and becomes a local hero, ala Aaron Jones.

[SisyphusMiner]

I have the subscriptions but I have not been watching, in some cases because I had other things going on, and some just out of general frustration with UTEP athletics.   So I don't really have an opinion of my own.

But what you just said brings me to something I've been thinking about.   We always compare coaches to the Great One, The Bear.  But he had bad years, even some losing seasons.  So no matter how great the coach, he can only do so much with the players on his roster.  I think we all know Haskins wasn't much on recruiting after those first few seasons, and his teams depended a lot on his assistants recruiting.  BUT... he always got more out of his players than any other coach would have, except maybe a few of the other legends of coaching.

So my question is this.  It looks like Golding's recruiting is substandard so far.  But is he getting the most he can out of them?  Looks like we'll probably be a middle of the pack team.  Is this a middle of the pack roster?

And that brings me to another thought.  I think in football we are not the worst team in conference anymore.  We are roughly just above lower 25%.  But our recruiting is annually one of the worst in college football.  I have blamed a lot on Dimel's incomprehensible strategies, and I'm not ready to give that up yet.  But I am wondering if just maybe he's getting his players to overachieve and periodically that just catches up with them.  Under this theory, we are roughly a NMSU/UNM level team in terms of talent, but Dimel is able to get them to play good enough to beat Boise some weeks and other weeks they fall to their natural level.  Even if true, I don't think that means his game plans and adjustments aren't awful at times.  I think both could be true

[Austintacious]

As I recall, Haskins' teams were not the best free throw shooters.  They might have been better free throw shooters than this team but, in the clutch, they came through. 

[kyyote]

Haskins never had to replace ten players from one year to the next.  I won't say a word about recruiting based on a half season.  Especially in 2023.  So far, he did very well with Givance, and Hardy without any question.  I think Givance would have been a beloved star on Haskins' teams.  But this is a build year.  lol Not a rebuild.  In car terms it would have a chassis.  No engine or drive train. no seats.   I am having to judge Golding based on a crazy standard never dealt with before.  So far they are a very closely playing group defensively.  He has got them to play with effort.  He has established an order and shown he can do the x's and o's things.  This team 10-8 and could be 14 and 4, easy.  No, what I mean by easy is that games ended in ties, they were that close.  If this team had one dead-eyed shooter, they would be dangerous!  The free throws thing is a drag because it is so danged silly hurting us. 

[kyyote]

After FAU.

We lost 59 to 67.

FAU is ranked 54th in Scoring Offense, scoring 77.4 ppg.  We held them to ten points below their average.  We average 69.6 ppg, so they held us to ten points below our average.  Defensively, we did our job.  Offensively either we didn't, or their defense did.  But we shot 30.8% from the field and 18.8% 3/16 from three point land.  I would have to tip my hat to FAU.  Their offense didn't beat us.  Their defense did.  Especially their perimeter defense.  But having said that, we played them tough.

I think this team is well coached, and dangerous.  This team can win every game it plays from here on out.  But it has no room for error because of shooting.  It is a lunch bucket team that works hard to get its job done and can outwork your team.  Most of the time.  That is my assessment of the team today.  Golding has taken his unknown collection of players and put together a team that is competitive in this conference.  I ask myself how competitive?  As competitive as the last five years?  The answer is yes.  Has he done it with as much talent as Terry had?  I think it is hard to tell.  Boum was a special player.  I am trying to think back over the past few years about talented players and it seems to me that I can list names of great UTEP players like rolling off a log, but try naming the recent greats.  So, having gotten that far, talented stars are no longer how I think about the recruiting and coaching.  Stars no longer even exist at our level.  They have already moved up past us.  It is down to luck and coaching players into a team.  Golding is a good coach.  He has them playing about as well as they are capable of.  This is UTEP.  WE are in a one bid league and about to be in the lowest of the conference in the land, barely able to put together a group of teams to form a conference.  Golding is definitely capable of coaching at this level.  At this level, what does a coach have to do?  Manage a team and not just suck.  Recruiting is nonsense.  At UTEP what is expected from the administration.  Don't suck.  That is it.  Don't be an embarrassment.  Ask yourself if you believe the administration even is trying to win conference championships or is it just going through the motions?  The administration at UTEP was set by Lady Dianna and those there today are placeholders.  Names to put on cards to place on dinner and conference tables.

[SisyphusMiner]

Don't ignore the reality that the regular season is essentially meaningless so long as we make the conference tourney.  The question is whether this team is capable of winning the conference tourney.   Even if FAU stays in the top 25 I bet they don't get an at large if they don't win the tourney.

Winning in the regular season may help with butts in seats and recruiting (but only incrementally).  Beating a big team in the tourney would theoretically help recruiting, but would also likely mean Golding would get hired to a cartel team putting us back at square 1 with Senter hiring, and any recruiting advantage gone with Golding.  Sad.

[kyyote]

Reality 2023.

[MinerInWisconsin]

What's interesting about conference NET rankings is that going by future conference membership and ranking them by current NET rankings, the MWC, AAC, CUSA, A10, SBC, MVC, MAC are ranked in that order. That includes Kennesaw St (130), SHSU (50), Liberty (51) and Jacksonville St (307). UTEP is 167. To have future CUSA ranked ahead of the A10 and MVC is surprising. This was put together by a WKU fan on the realignment board.

Edit: UTEP now 173 but UNT is 60 and since it's a road game for UTEP, it is a quad 1 game for the Miners. A nice jump in the NET rankings if the Miners get the win.

[SisyphusMiner]

watched a few minutes of the game on ESPN.  I usually attend UNT in person, but I totally didn't make the connection.  I am really disengaged this year.  Kinda glad I didn't.   Although I do love me some good defense, this is the worst shooting team I have ever seen.  unbelievably bad.  Golding better figure out how to recruit or how to coach offense or something because the program can't survive this in combo with Dimel football.  My gosh, at some point you do have to score more points than the other guy to win.

[kyyote]

Sis, I was looking to see just how bad our shooting is and was shocked to find that we are actually pretty good.  We are actually ranked 137th in shooting percentage at 45.3%.  AND that is being ranked 348 of 352 and 27.8% from beyond the arc.  Our leading scorer, Hardy had 4 points.
I think we have to tip our hats to UNT.  They were ranked and are ranked #3 in scoring defense.  They shut us down.  We shoot 45% but against them we were at 36% and a ridiculous 2/13 or 13% from three-point range. 

We played them tough.  They played us tougher.

[SisyphusMiner]

You can?t win being at 348th in the country from 3.  You just can?t

[Minermojo]

I feel like the Grand Canyon, I hear an echo, I'm always repeating myself. What's wrong with these coaches, ours included, is that you don't look at how many points a player makes, you look at their shooting percentage. A player could be a "gimme the ball, I'll shoot" so if he takes the majority of the shots of course he'll have a great game. I had a cousin who played basketball and his ego prevented him from passing the ball, he always wanted to be the hero and would wound up with the most points. Of course, he was the one that took the most shots, it doesn't take a rocket scientist. Accuracy is the name of the game and if a player doesn't fall in love with the ball and occasionally takes a shot/s and makes them that's the one to look for, not the ball hog.

Jeepers, like I've said most coaches are Xs and Os guys but are lacking big time in common sense.

[Chanson]

Man, we suck something fierce. Golding shit the bed this year. He couldn't get 1 glue player  and no real high IQ player. All scrappers on the team isn't going to cut it at this level. At 1 point you need a good talent on the team.

[SisyphusMiner]

Programs rise and fall.  We've discussed the changes in the landscape that have made it hard, but other teams have adapted.  I was a big supporter of the Golding hire, but it appears he does not know how to operate in the current environment.   If I may apply a Bible verse here, I Chronicles 12:32 describes a particular group of men out of all the soldiers that were preparing for a war "...from Issachar, men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do...".   Other school have men who understand the times and know what to do.  We do not, but we need it if we are ever going to be competitive again in any sport.

Just to raise your blood pressure, let's consider where this team is relative to other teams of the last 40 years.

If this team played any UTEP team from the 80s, what would be the final score?
What about a Gillispie squad?  Or a Barbee squad?  Or a Sadler squad?  Floyde's worst team was better than this.

Hell lets look at Rabs. These guys might have beat his last team (Wolfram gone), but I'm not confident of that. 


I now think that Kyyote was right.  Hire a flashy NBA player as head coach.  Hell, hire a famous entertainer.  Hire Kanye, Drake, who cares ( I don't even know if those guys would be a draw, but you get the idea).  The only thing that matters anymore is recruiting an amazing new squad each and every year.  You don't have a team together long enough to teach them an offense or to develop them.  Just get the best pickup team you can and hope they can hold the court against all comers. 

[kyyote]

The blue-bloods schools haven't figured it out.  They relied on recruits.  A steady stream of the top talent and the talent waited and learned.  Winning begot winning. 

Then the portal was opened.  You could throw you name in the hat, and it cost nothing to see what would happen.  Non-blue-bloods, middle of the road schools in conferences with tv appearances could offer stars in waiting immediate recognition and play, and a chance to play on an all-star team.  The players gave up nothing and got a better deal.  It destroyed the benches of the blue-bloods.  It became who could assemble the best all-star team, and it filtered down to the bottom levels.  But the one thing that was constant was " It became who could assemble the best all-star team".  They did and have done it, but the up and down shifting is still the way it is and blue-bloods are traditionalists but not stupid. 

Notice that the players perspective is playing time at the highest exposure.  Then, it is who with, because winning is a must.  Let me say that again.  Winners want to win, with other winners.  So, it doesn't matter what the school has done in the past.  That shit is out.  Dead. Your Carolina Blue, don't man a thing to Gonzaga kids.  No longer even notch-worthy.  So.  what do we have to offer.  We are near the absolute bottom of the list in attractions.  Ask yourself if we are even trying, or are we just checking off the box that we are division one.  I honestly believe that Golding has his kids playing as hard as they can.  I see him coaching them into open shots that they just can't make.  I truly believe that he knows how to coach.  I think he got the best players he could get.  The one thing that could change where we are and where we are going fast, and that is down, is a huge splash.  Hire TIM HARDAWAY!  It would instantly put UTEP back on the relevant map!  He would be our own Deon Sanders.  He would be gone in two or three years, and then bring in the next biggest attraction name to coach.
For those of us who went to packed houses in The Bear's house, seeing a few hundred die-hard fans watch Charlotte beat Hell out of us on our court is just heart breaking.  I really am glad that Don Haskins isn't alive to see what has been allowed to happen.  And the truth is, I don't know that he would have been able to do much better. 
The game on the court is still basketball, but the game outside of the lines has changed completely.  You bring in Tim to bring in the talented kids.  His all-star team.  They win.  They leave.  He brings in more top talent to be on his talented team to win.   They move on and by now we had better have the next coach ready, because Hardaway will move up.  I think we could get him.  Pay him 2 million.  What is ten dollars times 5 thousand?  Because I believe he would be worth that right off the bat.  His name would attract opportunities for us to play in big tournaments for money and recognition.  Winning would  bring fans back.  Tim Hardaway if played and marketed right would be a happening every week!