Sign of the times

[Chanson]

Well, lots going on in the country with protests, rioting, civil rights, etc. Sad to see all the negative.
An innocent thing made my day yesterday. I looked up what the weather looked like & it said 101? for Wednesday here in El Paso. I told my 15yr old who likes to use the backyard on a daily to practice soccer drills. He responded, "no wonder we don't have riots in El Paso."
Anyway, I have to educate my kid to stop being so negative to the sun.
In regards to sports, we picked up a walk on PG from TX. I saw video & there is no diamond in the rough with this one. I think this pick up was more for locker room cohesion. I like what CRT is doing to avoid player melt downs.

On a side note, I have been keeping my eye on Coach Beard @ TT. He has two 1 & done 5☆s, a PG grad transfer from Wichita St, & McClung coming from Georgetown. He'll have another top 10 team coming into the season. I have a major respect for that coach and if there is another TX team to take the title, I want it to be TT.

[SisyphusMiner]

In regards to sports, we picked up a walk on PG from TX. I saw video & there is no diamond in the rough with this one. I think this pick up was more for locker room cohesion. I like what CRT is doing to avoid player melt downs.

Can you elaborate on how this affects locker room cohesion?

I agree on Beard BTW.  I really wish we had his clone here.

[Chanson]

Yes. He is bringing in kids who have played with each other or want to come and play with them. For example, Sholand, White, & Bieniemy played on the same high school team from Houston that went to the championship. This Cam Clardy kid from Cypress TX (Houston) idolized these kids & played with them in pick up games. More commonality = more cohesion. Terry is bringing in TX & Cali kids.
Odigie is also a Houston kid & Onyema is San Antonio. Then the Cali kids (Williams, Boum, Verhoeven, & Hess). Few outsiders in Vila, Agnew, & Kennedy.

[SisyphusMiner]

interesting approach.  i hope it works.  apparently that was the takeaway from last year -- chemistry.

[zyxwvutsru]

Got my invoice from Athletics for my season tickets, and whoa! they are adding a "next level" donation automatically, that you have to un-click to remove from your invoice. Thought that was a little bit tactless.  I guess a little slight of hand never hurts when trying to make up a budget deficit.

[Chanson]

It is safe to say that 2020 will go down as the worst year in sports.

[Austintacious]

On the upside, the UTEP football team will lose less games than in 2019.   

[SisyphusMiner]

We lose to Bye.  Why would we not lose to "did not play"?

[Chanson]

Today I renewed my basketball season tickets. I dont think any of us know what to expect. Only 2 starters coming back. Luckily they a really good. The others returning have yet to prove themselves. The newbies coming in seem to look the part, but so have so many others.
For the 2nd year on a row, I will not buy football season tickets for obvious reasons.
I do plan to go to a few women's basketball games. Last year the team was riddled with injuries & red shirts and I hear this should be a pretty good year, especially after some decent recruits.
Anyone else taking advantage of live UTEP sports?

[SisyphusMiner]

As I live in the Dallas area, my decision will be whether to renew my online game packages.  The financial commitment is lower, and the time commitment required to stay home and drink beer while watching a game on TV is lower, but the emotional commitment is where the challenge is.

I enjoy watching football and basketball even at the jr high level, because I can adjust my expectations to the level of play.  If the level of play is good for 8th graders it is enjoyable.  The problem is the level of play in football for us hasn't been good for any level of college football.  And the coaching is even worse.  My kids high school has basically one play -- snap the ball to the best athlete and let him run up the middle.  It's boring as hell and it doesn't work.  They won one game.  UTEP football is about the same.

One of the most fun basketball games I saw was a girls team in New Mexico from one of the reservations.  The tallest was about 5-4.  They ran a Princeton style offense and generated a lot of layups and totally took it to a much taller team from Albuquerque.  Every girl knew where every other girl would be at every moment.  Our basketball team last year did not look like that.  They certainly were much more athletic, but they looked about like what you get when you have athletic middle schoolers and they all want to jack up a 3 the second they touch the ball.  I have played pickup ball where there was much better cohesion and teamwork.

I guess with both Dimel and Terry we know what we've got, and we aren't going to succeed on the strength of their game plans and real-time adjustments.  So I hope like hell they have recruited better players that can pull themselves together as a team.