Roster

[kyyote]

I don?t mean to bitch but when you google UTEP basketball recruiting news you get weeks old stuff. I don?t know what is occupying local sports reporter?s time. Not that anyone would be interested in knowing what the latest is up with Williams.
On another note, I recently saw that we set records for honor roll student athletes reinforcing my thinking that academic standards may be part of the reason for a handful of wins the last few years. I am all for having geniuses play football if they are good at football.

[SisyphusMiner]

I don't understand this at all.  UTEP will basically allow anyone in as a student, and I'm not criticizing that.  If they want to raise standards for admission, why would you start with the athletics program?

[kyyote]

We are Tier 1. Harvard on the Border doncha know! 

[Chanson]

So...I was reading what Adrian Broudus (I probably destroyed his name) wrote this morning. He said Williams will not be returning & is looking for a P5 conference team that has a chance in winning a championship as well as giving him more exposure for the NBA.

I wish him all the luck in the world.
We move on.

[SisyphusMiner]

The other site has some highlights of some of the players we are after.
I really like the French PG -- especially since he appears to take pride in defense.  I also like how mobile and versatile the RS freshman Pearson looks to be.  I would like us to pick up a more experienced PF, and the McNeese transfer Feazell might fill that need.  I like that he got 13 pts and 10 boards per game.  Someone who is willing to work for the rebounds is much needed.  TV works but gets pushed around a bit.

With the addition of Saterfield we should have some weapons from 3, assuming that Kennedy can shoot better than last year.  Bienemy had his moments.

if we land any of these guys I really like us on paper for next year

[Chanson]

Agreed. I was also looking at that kid who played for Boston College. That kid is a beast at 6'7". He would fill that PF position nicely. I didn't look at any of the point guards, but I hope they will be OK as a back up PG.
With Kennedy being a combo SF/SG, we have only have Bieniemy, Saterfield, & Boum to share the load.
We do need a PG though. Remember when we had only 1 PG under Floyd with Willms, Hunter, & JWash? Jones was pur back up. I thank him for helping out, but we could have used a true PG since CJ Cooper was forced to convert to the PG position.
I'd rather play small than tall. I'll try to find some vids on that French kid.

[zyxwvutsru]

I don't understand this at all.  UTEP will basically allow anyone in as a student, and I'm not criticizing that.  If they want to raise standards for admission, why would you start with the athletics program?

NCAA requirements for athletic admission (and participation) is HIGHER than UTEP's general admission standards, and has been for thirty years or so.  This is nothing new, and the number of student athlete's on the Academic Honor roll is tied to performance bonus for the coaches, the AD, and such.  UTEP does a good job keeping kids on track to graduate, and those that have any iota of intelligence, usually end up on said Honor Roll.   

[kyyote]

I don't understand this at all.  UTEP will basically allow anyone in as a student, and I'm not criticizing that.  If they want to raise standards for admission, why would you start with the athletics program?

NCAA requirements for athletic admission (and participation) is HIGHER than UTEP's general admission standards, and has been for thirty years or so.  This is nothing new, and the number of student athlete's on the Academic Honor roll is tied to performance bonus for the coaches, the AD, and such.  UTEP does a good job keeping kids on track to graduate, and those that have any iota of intelligence, usually end up on said Honor Roll.   

That is a great thing, too! 

[kyyote]

Congratulations to Bryson Williams.  He got his degree and he is a Miner forever, now.

[SisyphusMiner]

I don't understand this at all.  UTEP will basically allow anyone in as a student, and I'm not criticizing that.  If they want to raise standards for admission, why would you start with the athletics program?

NCAA requirements for athletic admission (and participation) is HIGHER than UTEP's general admission standards, and has been for thirty years or so.  This is nothing new, and the number of student athlete's on the Academic Honor roll is tied to performance bonus for the coaches, the AD, and such.  UTEP does a good job keeping kids on track to graduate, and those that have any iota of intelligence, usually end up on said Honor Roll.

I did not realize this.

And yes, congrats to BW.  I hope he has success whatever he decides to do.

[liebestraum]

I don't understand this at all.  UTEP will basically allow anyone in as a student, and I'm not criticizing that.  If they want to raise standards for admission, why would you start with the athletics program?

NCAA requirements for athletic admission (and participation) is HIGHER than UTEP's general admission standards, and has been for thirty years or so.  This is nothing new, and the number of student athlete's on the Academic Honor roll is tied to performance bonus for the coaches, the AD, and such.  UTEP does a good job keeping kids on track to graduate, and those that have any iota of intelligence, usually end up on said Honor Roll.

You might want to check their majors, though.  Quite a few years ago, many universities created a generic Interdisciplinary Studies major.  The university I worked at certainly has one.  It is essentially a liberal arts degree where students can pick courses in three our four areas that total to 120 hours.  They need to have at least 42 hours of upper division work in their major.  The cynic in me sees how it would be easy to have certain courses set that such students (athletes and non-athletes) could take.

When I was department chair, I once had to advise an incoming football player who was transferring from Texas A&M.  He needed some advice figuring out what math class to take.  Since he was an academic sophomore, I wondered why he had not taken a math class in his first two years.  He told me he had been taking Ag courses for two years.  I could not believe that, so I logged on to the admissions website and pulled up his transcript.  Sure enough - two solid years of agriculture classes.  No English, math, history, or other core classes required by the state of Texas were listed.

The student was honest, though.  He knew this was messed up and wanted to get (in his words) a real schedule. Luckily, SHSU had a good academic compliance officer to help him.

Now, there are plenty of athletes that have more traditional majors and they work hard at them.   Z is right about the requirements.  Still, there are ways to play the system.

lieb

[SisyphusMiner]

I don't understand this at all.  UTEP will basically allow anyone in as a student, and I'm not criticizing that.  If they want to raise standards for admission, why would you start with the athletics program?

NCAA requirements for athletic admission (and participation) is HIGHER than UTEP's general admission standards, and has been for thirty years or so.  This is nothing new, and the number of student athlete's on the Academic Honor roll is tied to performance bonus for the coaches, the AD, and such.  UTEP does a good job keeping kids on track to graduate, and those that have any iota of intelligence, usually end up on said Honor Roll.

You might want to check their majors, though.  Quite a few years ago, many universities created a generic Interdisciplinary Studies major.  The university I worked at certainly has one.  It is essentially a liberal arts degree where students can pick courses in three our four areas that total to 120 hours.  They need to have at least 42 hours of upper division work in their major.  The cynic in me sees how it would be easy to have certain courses set that such students (athletes and non-athletes) could take.

When I was department chair, I once had to advise an incoming football player who was transferring from Texas A&M.  He needed some advice figuring out what math class to take.  Since he was an academic sophomore, I wondered why he had not taken a math class in his first two years.  He told me he had been taking Ag courses for two years.  I could not believe that, so I logged on to the admissions website and pulled up his transcript.  Sure enough - two solid years of agriculture classes.  No English, math, history, or other core classes required by the state of Texas were listed.

The student was honest, though.  He knew this was messed up and wanted to get (in his words) a real schedule. Luckily, SHSU had a good academic compliance officer to help him.

Now, there are plenty of athletes that have more traditional majors and they work hard at them.   Z is right about the requirements.  Still, there are ways to play the system.

lieb

I am a cynic, and I think that for most athletes at most schools, the actual school part is a complete farce.  But the business is so big schools will never go back to a day when the athletes were legit students.  Honestly, in my opinion, most colleges are more interested in the money these days than the education part of it even on the academic side of things.  This is one of the things I admire about Natalicio and UTEP -- she was committed to providing the best education possible for as many people as possible.  If you don't have to pay room and board, you can still get an education at a Tier 1 school for under $10k / year.  And that is keeping the focus where it ought to be.  I hope it continues under the new regime.

[Chanson]

No recruiting activity to report at this time. A few guards & some PF's are still in the mix, but no solid gets at this time. We 1st need a solid big man to make it a 4 man rotation. Out starting guards are proven, but we need a back up ball handler.

[zyxwvutsru]

I don't understand this at all.  UTEP will basically allow anyone in as a student, and I'm not criticizing that.  If they want to raise standards for admission, why would you start with the athletics program?

NCAA requirements for athletic admission (and participation) is HIGHER than UTEP's general admission standards, and has been for thirty years or so.  This is nothing new, and the number of student athlete's on the Academic Honor roll is tied to performance bonus for the coaches, the AD, and such.  UTEP does a good job keeping kids on track to graduate, and those that have any iota of intelligence, usually end up on said Honor Roll.

You might want to check their majors, though.  Quite a few years ago, many universities created a generic Interdisciplinary Studies major.  The university I worked at certainly has one.  It is essentially a liberal arts degree where students can pick courses in three our four areas that total to 120 hours.  They need to have at least 42 hours of upper division work in their major.  The cynic in me sees how it would be easy to have certain courses set that such students (athletes and non-athletes) could take.

When I was department chair, I once had to advise an incoming football player who was transferring from Texas A&M.  He needed some advice figuring out what math class to take.  Since he was an academic sophomore, I wondered why he had not taken a math class in his first two years.  He told me he had been taking Ag courses for two years.  I could not believe that, so I logged on to the admissions website and pulled up his transcript.  Sure enough - two solid years of agriculture classes.  No English, math, history, or other core classes required by the state of Texas were listed.

The student was honest, though.  He knew this was messed up and wanted to get (in his words) a real schedule. Luckily, SHSU had a good academic compliance officer to help him.

Now, there are plenty of athletes that have more traditional majors and they work hard at them.   Z is right about the requirements.  Still, there are ways to play the system.

lieb

I am a cynic, and I think that for most athletes at most schools, the actual school part is a complete farce.  But the business is so big schools will never go back to a day when the athletes were legit students.  Honestly, in my opinion, most colleges are more interested in the money these days than the education part of it even on the academic side of things.  This is one of the things I admire about Natalicio and UTEP -- she was committed to providing the best education possible for as many people as possible.  If you don't have to pay room and board, you can still get an education at a Tier 1 school for under $10k / year.  And that is keeping the focus where it ought to be.  I hope it continues under the new regime.

UTEP's Multidisciplinary Degree was nt created for Athletics, all though a large number take advantage of it.  It was created as a way to move people out the door, especially those non-traditional students, who have too may hours from multiple schools (both JC and 4yr) and should have graduated twice over.  Aligning curricula between levels and campuses is difficult, thus we did the BMS. 

I agree with Leib, I have seen tons of transfers with cray cray transcripts, but they deserve a quality education.  I like to think my alma mater provides that. 

[kyyote]

Thanks for the clarification. I believe that the UTEP is probably the very best deal in the country. Of course I was just a teacher.