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All-Time Miners - Last 35 Years

TenaciousD

Rookie
Jun 28, 2001
132
516
93
El Paso, TX
Well, since the 1986-87 season, which introduced the 3-point shot, thus making different eras harder to compare. So guys like David Lattin, Charlie Brown, Paul Cunningham, Luster Goodwin, Fred Reynolds, Terry White, etc are not on this list, although each would be worthy of being named to the all-time greats list. This list uses a statistical model, which I found online probably 20 years ago and seems to do a decent job. The basic tenets of the system are:

1) Offensive Efficiency = Total Points / (FGA*2 + FTA)
Rewards 3-point shooters and good FG/FT %, so I think a decent measure of Off Efficiency
2) Total Offense = (TP + A*2 - TO) / Player MIN
Similarly, a guard who dishes assists gets rewarded, and loses for turning it over
3) Possessions Gained = (REB + S + BLK/2 - PF) / Player MIN
Credits rebounds and steals, and gives 50% for a blocked shot with the assumption a BS not always results in a gained possession so assumes half the time it does. Penalizes fouling.
4) Win Rating = Player MIN / (Team MIN / 5) * (Wins / Game #)
The rationale is a player on the court is contributing to the wins or the losses, a player who gets tons of minutes on a bad team will get dinged.

The final result is a simple average of these 4 numbers. I adjust the rankings to exclude guys who played less than 1 season or if they did not play in more than 2.5% of the teams minutes, this way a guy who came in for 1 minutes, hit a three and grabbed a rebound wouldnt be ranked #1.

So here are the rankings using this system:

Rk Player G Rating
1 Omar Thomas 67 0.4944
2 Tim Hardaway 96 0.4914
3 Filiberto Rivera 64 0.4843
4 Eddie Rivera 68 0.4558
5 Jason Williams 97 0.4501
6 Antoine Gillespie 94 0.4463
7 Vince Hunter 67 0.4405
8 Randy Culpepper 138 0.4381
9 Brandon Wolfram 114 0.4355
10 Stefon Jackson 125 0.4351
11 Dominic Artis 65 0.4322
12 George Banks 59 0.4249
13 Chris Blocker 58 0.4241
14 Bryson Williams 56 0.4174
15 Julyan Stone 138 0.4101
16 Marlon Maxey 72 0.4065
17 Mark Ingles 57 0.4031
18 Wayne Campbell 65 0.4003
19 John Bohannon 123 0.3967
20 Eugene Costello 63 0.3966
21 Christian Polk 67 0.3951
22 Prince Stewart 129 0.3949
23 Souley Boum 56 0.3949
24 Chris Sandle 50 0.3941
25 Jeremy Williams 68 0.3941
26 Arnett Moultrie 70 0.3920
27 Kimani Jones-Young 83 0.3888
28 Earvin Morris 65 0.3852
29 Ralph Davis 122 0.3849
30 John Tofi 117 0.3833
31 Johnny Melvin 129 0.3818
32 Marvin Kilgore 64 0.3795
33 Julian Washburn 117 0.3791
34 Antonio Davis 122 0.3788
35 Brian Stewart 58 0.3742
36 Greg Foster 58 0.3734
37 William Smith 107 0.3733
38 Kevin Henderson 61 0.3719
39 Jacques Streeter 62 0.3710
40 Roy Smallwood 128 0.3691
41 Miguel Ayala 59 0.3683
42 Eggie McRae 56 0.3636
43 David Van Dyke 127 0.3612
44 Henry Hall 55 0.3598
45 Omega Harris 119 0.3575
46 Sharif Fajardo 99 0.3527
47 Carl Davis 80 0.3510
48 McKenzie Moore 36 0.3509
49 Mark McCall 105 0.3509
50 Jarvis Mullahon 56 0.3503
51 Chris Craig 60 0.3500
52 Cedrick Lang 128 0.3494
53 Giovanni St. Amant 97 0.3436
54 Kevin Beal 55 0.3387
55 Efe Odigie 66 0.3340
56 Chris Neal 64 0.3306
57 C.J. Cooper 124 0.3278
58 Matt Willms 118 0.3276
59 JoJo Garcia 79 0.3217
60 Maurice Thomas 61 0.3215
61 Leonard Owens 51 0.3214
62 Nick Enzweiler 63 0.3201
63 B.J. Wade 52 0.3182
64 Gabriel McCulley 132 0.3153
65 Roy Howard 93 0.3143
66 Claude Britten 115 0.3133
67 Jordan Lathon 57 0.3127
68 Gym Bice 97 0.3097
69 Will Kimble 64 0.3082
70 Terry Winn 36 0.3032
71 Evan Gilyard 59 0.3031
72 Justino Victoriano 62 0.3029
73 Michael Perez 57 0.2990
74 Paul Thomas 114 0.2974
75 Nigel Hawkins 50 0.2953
76 Terry Stallworth 62 0.2942
77 Jeff Spillar 104 0.2940
78 Tevin Caldwell 58 0.2926
79 Omar Duran 48 0.2887
80 Tydus Verhoeven 54 0.2837
81 Tavaris Watts 57 0.2814
82 Jeremy Primozich 52 0.2761
83 Hooper Vint 101 0.2740
84 Rico Nelson 100 0.2713
85 Phil Crocker 90 0.2705
86 Darius Mattear 50 0.2679
87 John Portis 50 0.2678
88 Kobe Magee 58 0.2647
89 Trey Touchet 89 0.2620
90 Brent Murphy 69 0.2599
91 Victor Ramalho 64 0.2570
92 Thomas Gehrke 63 0.2558
93 Antone Jarrell 63 0.2509
94 Jeremy Sampson 61 0.2470
95 Jake Flaggert 122 0.2400
96 Victor Luces 106 0.2344
97 Isaac Gordon 76 0.2285
98 Hector Gonzalez 59 0.2187
99 Arlandis Rush 39 0.2180
100 Jose Escobedo 105 0.2166
101 Joe Devance 52 0.2093
102 Ountae Campbell 26 0.2082
103 Jalen Ragland 52 0.2051
104 Gilles Dekoninck 29 0.2023
105 Darryl Christopher 47 0.2003
106 Francis Ezenwa 52 0.1941
107 Jon Bomba 109 0.1933
108 Wayne Portalatin 97 0.1817

Guys who’s career was less than 2 seasons (1 year or less does not make a career) - or did not play in more than 2.5% of the total team's minutes:
Lee Moore 33 0.4533
Jeep Jackson 32 0.4447 (only because I am picking up his Sr Season)
Derrick Caracter 27 0.4407
Mike Richmond 31 0.4359 (See Jeep)
Edgar Moreno 31 0.3987
Quintan Gates 29 0.3917 (again only his Sr Yr)
Malik Alvin 31 0.3540
Jerry Johnson 13 0.3461
Joe Griffin 16 0.3428
Von Bennett 29 0.3413
Keith Frazier 19 0.3219
Konner Tucker 25 0.3187
Trey Wade 25 0.3157
Alton Sanders 26 0.3072
Damion Gosa 30 0.3071
Myron Strong 33 0.3061
Isiah Osborne 29 0.3004
Dale Vanwright 21 0.2899
Kareem Cooper 21 0.2878
Tremaine Fuqua 8 0.2859
Darren Clarke 29 0.2850
Jerry Jones 24 0.2777
Javier Mendoza 25 0.2682
Jason Tollette 11 0.2670
Justin Crosgile 14 0.2651
Chris Washburn 32 0.2643
Kelvin Davis 24 0.2632
Kelvin Jones 32 0.2629
Eddie Williams 32 0.2615
Deon Barrett 31 0.2602
Fernie Hernandez 19 0.2546
Jason Jones 36 0.2337
Kaosi Ezeagu 29 0.2315
Corey Speight 23 0.2266
Tirus Smith 24 0.2258
Pearson Smith 24 0.2242
D'Von Campbell 23 0.2234
Donta Randle 19 0.2196
Luke Martin 23 0.2155
Malcolm Moore 21 0.2062
Lew Stallworth 19 0.2029
Louis Radford 30 0.2029
Stanley Branch 19 0.2010
Twymond Howard 12 0.2003
Jamal Hill 15 0.1975
Chris Walters 23 0.1853
Ivan Venegas 27 0.1830
Rodney McKoy 15 0.1795
Bryan Barnes 24 0.1785
Dwayne Edwards 21 0.1643
Brodricks Jones 16 0.1603
Alex Anthis 31 0.1575
Quenton Thomas 12 0.1394
Chris Barnes 16 0.1287
Christian Romine 14 0.1204
Keith Manuel 12 0.1177
Vernon Carr 14 0.1175
Aaron Jones 10 0.1092
Blaise Ffrench 26 0.0695
Chano Rashiduddin 9 0.0229
 
That is a hell of a job you did with this research. It’s hard to argue the results since the top 5 players were major contributors on the most successful Miner teams on the last 30+ years.
 
OT was so clutch in his playing days. Give this man a spot on the team as something!

Surprised JWill and Artis are so high, mostly Artis. George Banks is high up there too, and that makes my 90s-6 year old heart so happy!

Great job @TenaciousD !
 
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Obviously Tiny Archibald would've been on this list. And it is really a shame Luster Goodwin is not on it. One of our best long-range shooters ever.p

lieb! It's been a while. Good to see you on here. Yeah, there are a lot of greats that would have made this list. Pony Goodwin is one of my favorite Miners. He would have been even more deadly with the three point shot.
 
lieb! It's been a while. Good to see you on here. Yeah, there are a lot of greats that would have made this list. Pony Goodwin is one of my favorite Miners. He would have been even more deadly with the three point shot.
Well, I'm retired now, so I have time to indulge in more than one UTEP sports board.
 
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Sweet Lou, DH, Trooper, nineteenrabbit, and the greatest miner fan with the biggest heart that pumps Miner orange, Kyyote et al...

Come back. Let me be the first to apologize for my idiot Miner moderator days a few years ago. I am sorry. You are great resources, and love this school we call home.

If you still want to tell me "go fly a kite" I understand.
 
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Does anyone on here know the history of Scott English? I think he ended up in Phoenix and played briefly in the NBA. What a stud he was and an extraordinary athlete. Also was an exceptional high jumper and I think played on The El Paso Sol pro volleyball team. Sorry, this was too long ago for you youngsters.
 
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Does anyone on here know the history of Scott English? I think he ended up in Phoenix and played briefly in the NBA. What a stud he was and an extraordinary athlete. Also was an exceptional high jumper and I think played on The El Paso Sol pro volleyball team. Sorry, this was too long ago for you youngsters.
There's youngsters on here?
 
I remember Scott English #44. He was an awesome player for the Miners back in his day. I have no idea what he is doing though. I’m also curious what Juden Smith is up to nowadays. He was my all-time favorite Miner player. Does anyone know?
 
Every time "UTEP Greats" comes up two players pop in my mind: Kevin Lockhart and "Gym" Bice. They were not even remotely close to athletic as JWash, Hardaway, Melvin and others but they just got the small jobs done to win. Bice just ran the offense like it was suppose to be run and he didn't it F it up. KL rebounded, played the 3 well, defended and rarely got pushed around. He was actually a fiery player.

I guess the same goes for Tofi.
 
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The minute I started reading the list, I said to myself "I bet Wayne Portalatin is last". At one point, he owned the record for fastest foul out in an NCAA D1 game, I think like a little over 4 mins or something? Not sure if it has been surpassed, but we trolled him about it in the student section the rest of the season.

EDIT: I guess it was the fastest foul out in the conference's history, not NCAA history. Just looked it up.
 
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"Jerry Johnson 13 0.346"

He and another UTEP big man bailed a buddy and me out of what could've been a very dangerous situation in Ciudad Juarez back when he was here briefly.
 
WOW alot of great players and games recalled when I saw your list, #1 Omar Thomas was my favorite guy just could score played basketball as if it was a game of pool he knew every angle to make a shot 15 ft in. #50 Jarvis Mullahon was also a favorite, watched him in the NM State tourney when he was in HS and he dominated but UNM slighted him. He returned to the pit with the MINERs 4 years later and made them eat it.
 
I remember Scott English #44. He was an awesome player for the Miners back in his day. I have no idea what he is doing though. I’m also curious what Juden Smith is up to nowadays. He was my all-time favorite Miner player. Does anyone know?
Scott English was just a great athlete was a high jumper and great volleyball player. He also was a big time "trash talker". As a kid watched him frustrate the BYU big guy Krisamer Cosic in a game at memorial gym, and I have never seen a college basketball player literally cry after fouling out. English baited him into about 4 of them and when Cosic went to the bench English had this huge smile on his face.
 
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Well, since the 1986-87 season, which introduced the 3-point shot, thus making different eras harder to compare. So guys like David Lattin, Charlie Brown, Paul Cunningham, Luster Goodwin, Fred Reynolds, Terry White, etc are not on this list, although each would be worthy of being named to the all-time greats list. This list uses a statistical model, which I found online probably 20 years ago and seems to do a decent job. The basic tenets of the system are:

1) Offensive Efficiency = Total Points / (FGA*2 + FTA)
Rewards 3-point shooters and good FG/FT %, so I think a decent measure of Off Efficiency
2) Total Offense = (TP + A*2 - TO) / Player MIN
Similarly, a guard who dishes assists gets rewarded, and loses for turning it over
3) Possessions Gained = (REB + S + BLK/2 - PF) / Player MIN
Credits rebounds and steals, and gives 50% for a blocked shot with the assumption a BS not always results in a gained possession so assumes half the time it does. Penalizes fouling.
4) Win Rating = Player MIN / (Team MIN / 5) * (Wins / Game #)
The rationale is a player on the court is contributing to the wins or the losses, a player who gets tons of minutes on a bad team will get dinged.

The final result is a simple average of these 4 numbers. I adjust the rankings to exclude guys who played less than 1 season or if they did not play in more than 2.5% of the teams minutes, this way a guy who came in for 1 minutes, hit a three and grabbed a rebound wouldnt be ranked #1.

So here are the rankings using this system:

Rk Player G Rating
1 Omar Thomas 67 0.4944
2 Tim Hardaway 96 0.4914
3 Filiberto Rivera 64 0.4843
4 Eddie Rivera 68 0.4558
5 Jason Williams 97 0.4501
6 Antoine Gillespie 94 0.4463
7 Vince Hunter 67 0.4405
8 Randy Culpepper 138 0.4381
9 Brandon Wolfram 114 0.4355
10 Stefon Jackson 125 0.4351
11 Dominic Artis 65 0.4322
12 George Banks 59 0.4249
13 Chris Blocker 58 0.4241
14 Bryson Williams 56 0.4174
15 Julyan Stone 138 0.4101
16 Marlon Maxey 72 0.4065
17 Mark Ingles 57 0.4031
18 Wayne Campbell 65 0.4003
19 John Bohannon 123 0.3967
20 Eugene Costello 63 0.3966
21 Christian Polk 67 0.3951
22 Prince Stewart 129 0.3949
23 Souley Boum 56 0.3949
24 Chris Sandle 50 0.3941
25 Jeremy Williams 68 0.3941
26 Arnett Moultrie 70 0.3920
27 Kimani Jones-Young 83 0.3888
28 Earvin Morris 65 0.3852
29 Ralph Davis 122 0.3849
30 John Tofi 117 0.3833
31 Johnny Melvin 129 0.3818
32 Marvin Kilgore 64 0.3795
33 Julian Washburn 117 0.3791
34 Antonio Davis 122 0.3788
35 Brian Stewart 58 0.3742
36 Greg Foster 58 0.3734
37 William Smith 107 0.3733
38 Kevin Henderson 61 0.3719
39 Jacques Streeter 62 0.3710
40 Roy Smallwood 128 0.3691
41 Miguel Ayala 59 0.3683
42 Eggie McRae 56 0.3636
43 David Van Dyke 127 0.3612
44 Henry Hall 55 0.3598
45 Omega Harris 119 0.3575
46 Sharif Fajardo 99 0.3527
47 Carl Davis 80 0.3510
48 McKenzie Moore 36 0.3509
49 Mark McCall 105 0.3509
50 Jarvis Mullahon 56 0.3503
51 Chris Craig 60 0.3500
52 Cedrick Lang 128 0.3494
53 Giovanni St. Amant 97 0.3436
54 Kevin Beal 55 0.3387
55 Efe Odigie 66 0.3340
56 Chris Neal 64 0.3306
57 C.J. Cooper 124 0.3278
58 Matt Willms 118 0.3276
59 JoJo Garcia 79 0.3217
60 Maurice Thomas 61 0.3215
61 Leonard Owens 51 0.3214
62 Nick Enzweiler 63 0.3201
63 B.J. Wade 52 0.3182
64 Gabriel McCulley 132 0.3153
65 Roy Howard 93 0.3143
66 Claude Britten 115 0.3133
67 Jordan Lathon 57 0.3127
68 Gym Bice 97 0.3097
69 Will Kimble 64 0.3082
70 Terry Winn 36 0.3032
71 Evan Gilyard 59 0.3031
72 Justino Victoriano 62 0.3029
73 Michael Perez 57 0.2990
74 Paul Thomas 114 0.2974
75 Nigel Hawkins 50 0.2953
76 Terry Stallworth 62 0.2942
77 Jeff Spillar 104 0.2940
78 Tevin Caldwell 58 0.2926
79 Omar Duran 48 0.2887
80 Tydus Verhoeven 54 0.2837
81 Tavaris Watts 57 0.2814
82 Jeremy Primozich 52 0.2761
83 Hooper Vint 101 0.2740
84 Rico Nelson 100 0.2713
85 Phil Crocker 90 0.2705
86 Darius Mattear 50 0.2679
87 John Portis 50 0.2678
88 Kobe Magee 58 0.2647
89 Trey Touchet 89 0.2620
90 Brent Murphy 69 0.2599
91 Victor Ramalho 64 0.2570
92 Thomas Gehrke 63 0.2558
93 Antone Jarrell 63 0.2509
94 Jeremy Sampson 61 0.2470
95 Jake Flaggert 122 0.2400
96 Victor Luces 106 0.2344
97 Isaac Gordon 76 0.2285
98 Hector Gonzalez 59 0.2187
99 Arlandis Rush 39 0.2180
100 Jose Escobedo 105 0.2166
101 Joe Devance 52 0.2093
102 Ountae Campbell 26 0.2082
103 Jalen Ragland 52 0.2051
104 Gilles Dekoninck 29 0.2023
105 Darryl Christopher 47 0.2003
106 Francis Ezenwa 52 0.1941
107 Jon Bomba 109 0.1933
108 Wayne Portalatin 97 0.1817

Guys who’s career was less than 2 seasons (1 year or less does not make a career) - or did not play in more than 2.5% of the total team's minutes:
Lee Moore 33 0.4533
Jeep Jackson 32 0.4447 (only because I am picking up his Sr Season)
Derrick Caracter 27 0.4407
Mike Richmond 31 0.4359 (See Jeep)
Edgar Moreno 31 0.3987
Quintan Gates 29 0.3917 (again only his Sr Yr)
Malik Alvin 31 0.3540
Jerry Johnson 13 0.3461
Joe Griffin 16 0.3428
Von Bennett 29 0.3413
Keith Frazier 19 0.3219
Konner Tucker 25 0.3187
Trey Wade 25 0.3157
Alton Sanders 26 0.3072
Damion Gosa 30 0.3071
Myron Strong 33 0.3061
Isiah Osborne 29 0.3004
Dale Vanwright 21 0.2899
Kareem Cooper 21 0.2878
Tremaine Fuqua 8 0.2859
Darren Clarke 29 0.2850
Jerry Jones 24 0.2777
Javier Mendoza 25 0.2682
Jason Tollette 11 0.2670
Justin Crosgile 14 0.2651
Chris Washburn 32 0.2643
Kelvin Davis 24 0.2632
Kelvin Jones 32 0.2629
Eddie Williams 32 0.2615
Deon Barrett 31 0.2602
Fernie Hernandez 19 0.2546
Jason Jones 36 0.2337
Kaosi Ezeagu 29 0.2315
Corey Speight 23 0.2266
Tirus Smith 24 0.2258
Pearson Smith 24 0.2242
D'Von Campbell 23 0.2234
Donta Randle 19 0.2196
Luke Martin 23 0.2155
Malcolm Moore 21 0.2062
Lew Stallworth 19 0.2029
Louis Radford 30 0.2029
Stanley Branch 19 0.2010
Twymond Howard 12 0.2003
Jamal Hill 15 0.1975
Chris Walters 23 0.1853
Ivan Venegas 27 0.1830
Rodney McKoy 15 0.1795
Bryan Barnes 24 0.1785
Dwayne Edwards 21 0.1643
Brodricks Jones 16 0.1603
Alex Anthis 31 0.1575
Quenton Thomas 12 0.1394
Chris Barnes 16 0.1287
Christian Romine 14 0.1204
Keith Manuel 12 0.1177
Vernon Carr 14 0.1175
Aaron Jones 10 0.1092
Blaise Ffrench 26 0.0695
Chano Rashiduddin 9 0.0229
How did Wayne Portalitin get a scholarship?
 
Found this article of the 1984 UTEP Miners. No way in heck would a writer get away with writing such a politically incorrect article today (don't worry, nothing insulting).

https://vault.si.com/vault/1984/01/16/the-miners-are-still-going-at-it-pick-and-shovel
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I remember both that team and that SI article. It was a great team that met an even a better team, UNLV, in the NCAA Tournament, and we were one and done. Still, it was a fantastic year for UTEP Basketball.
 
How did Wayne Portalitin get a scholarship?
In trying to find that answer I found that he was offered to try out for Mike Price (3/2011):

“1) Basketball player Wayne Portalatin will try out for the football team at defensive end. He has exhausted his eligibility at basketball but is a year from graduation. If he makes the team, Mike Price will commit a scholarship to him. If he doesn't make the team, he will be back on a basketball scholarship to complete his degree, but won't count against the team's limit and will probably have a job in the athletic department.” http://www.elpasotimes.com/story/sp...-the-utep-football-press-conference/31520089/
 
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