...and crickets. Goes to show the disconnect Floyd has created.
http://www.utepathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/071316aaa.html
http://www.utepathletics.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/071316aaa.html
Bball schedule comes out...
- Thread starter Hot For Keitha
- Start date
Two girls wake up Christmas morning and rush to the tree to see what Santa brought. They find a steaming turd under one of the boughs. One says, "Santa brought us a pony!" The other replies, "No, the dog shit on the carpet."
Regarding this schedule (and season), I'm trying real hard to think of it as a pony, but I fear it may just be a turd.
Regarding this schedule (and season), I'm trying real hard to think of it as a pony, but I fear it may just be a turd.
We know we'll get some quality opponents in the Charleston Classic, NMSU is solid and playing at New Mexico is always a test. If we play Akron, they're defending MAC champs coming off of 26 wins, and UC Irvine is not a pushover either.
I know nobody gets excited about the lesser opponents, but all teams have them, and the Miners will have their opportunities for quality wins with this schedule.
I know nobody gets excited about the lesser opponents, but all teams have them, and the Miners will have their opportunities for quality wins with this schedule.
Goodness gracious, that schedule just screams 200+ RPI. Again...
This is definitely one way to get to 20+ wins, weren't we just playing Arizona at home and had a series with Washington/State? Anyway, the only thing that matters is that they win the conference tournament. The rest is pretty much preseason. Here's to hoping for 25-26 wins anyway. GO MINERS!
I think what we need more than a 20 win season is more like a 5 win season.
But, if our AD is happy with 20 win seasons as the measure of success, expect to see this kind of schedule for the foreseeable future.
Next season will have Washington St, NMSU and UNM at the DHC. That will be an improvement over this home OOC slate which is awful.
I agree that there is the potential for quality opponents in the Charleston Classic, and I like that we're playing UNM this year. All of these games are the road. The issue is that other than the annual game with NMSU, which everyone already knows will be on the schedule, and the finals of the Sun Bowl Tournament, there are no teams on the home out-of-conference schedule to excite the fans. And, while I know that Akron and UCI both field good teams, do you think that the average fan is aware of this? So even the Sun Bowl Tournament may fail to excite many people. Unless the team completely surprises and pulls off some good wins in those road games, I expect attendance at the DHC to be poor by UTEP's standard this year.
I wish UTEP, NMSU and UNM would team up to host a tournament. Host rotates every year, invite 5 other teams and see what happens.
This sums it up perfectly:
UTEP's unambitious scheduling has become wearisome
David Mijares | MINER ILLUSTRATED Managing Editor
UTEP's complacence with unambitious scheduling has gotten old.
Despite the school being nowhere close to the bubble on Selection Sunday in recent years, nothing changed.
Year after year, the NCAA Tournament selection committee has made it clear that strength of schedule is awarded when making its decisions for at-large bids and seeding.
For another season, though, the Miners facing the likes of Louisiana College, Southeastern Louisiana, Northwestern State, and Northern Arizona for their out-of-conference home slate (NMSU series not included) shows that the school is perfectly content with recent results.
UTEP saw how a visit from Arizona in 2014 revitalized El Paso’s inherent passion for the Miners when fans were given a reason to cheer, a reason to show up.
The Miners weren't considered for an at-large selection that season because Arizona was the only chance they gave themselves to beat a prestigious opponent -- and despite besting Xavier in the Wooden Legacy, the Musketeers were chosen over the Miners for the Big Dance.
The year before that, Tennessee was selected despite losing to UTEP in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Last year, UTEP witnessed a home schedule devoid of any college power -- and the Don Haskins Center witnessed half its seats devoid of fans.
The argument can be made that NCAA powers don't want to visit the Haskins Center. Playing in respected conferences, schools who are perennial members of the NCAA Tournament have the luxury of loading up their nonconference slate purely with home games that are guaranteed wins: Too much money is to be made for those schools to not, and the quality of their conference opponents makes up for lacking competition. It's why Kentucky wouldn't come to El Paso to commemorate 1966.
At the same time, UTEP declined an open invitation to visit Rupp Arena while being in no position to avoid elite competition.
As a member of a conference that decided to respond to NCAA realignment by over-reloading with schools that repeatedly bring down the league’s collective RPI -- resulting in a one-bid Conference USA despite tournament-worthy teams at the top of the standings -- UTEP continues to believe it can play by the same rules as power-conference schools with home cupcakes on its schedule.
The Miners should be willing to play anyone anywhere.
Participating in tournaments like the Charleston Classic helps. Renewing the series with New Mexico is a step forward.
But a program plagued by mediocrity -- continually chasing the glory of '66 -- shouldn't have holes in the part of its schedule that is strategically controlled.
Maybe my aspirations for UTEP are too high. Maybe the best days of Miner Ball exist in a bygone era. Maybe I should be content with a schedule lacking the highest level of competition possible for the sake of having out-of-conference home games.
Maybe I'll be shut up when the Miners beat defending NCAA champion Villanova in Charleston, or maybe the Miners will win 30 games with this schedule and the strength won't be an issue.
But until then, it's a thoughtless disservice to fans that we're looking at another C-USA Tournament title or bust this year -- with a regular season lacking meaning.
UTEP's unambitious scheduling has become wearisome
David Mijares | MINER ILLUSTRATED Managing Editor
UTEP's complacence with unambitious scheduling has gotten old.
Despite the school being nowhere close to the bubble on Selection Sunday in recent years, nothing changed.
Year after year, the NCAA Tournament selection committee has made it clear that strength of schedule is awarded when making its decisions for at-large bids and seeding.
For another season, though, the Miners facing the likes of Louisiana College, Southeastern Louisiana, Northwestern State, and Northern Arizona for their out-of-conference home slate (NMSU series not included) shows that the school is perfectly content with recent results.
UTEP saw how a visit from Arizona in 2014 revitalized El Paso’s inherent passion for the Miners when fans were given a reason to cheer, a reason to show up.
The Miners weren't considered for an at-large selection that season because Arizona was the only chance they gave themselves to beat a prestigious opponent -- and despite besting Xavier in the Wooden Legacy, the Musketeers were chosen over the Miners for the Big Dance.
The year before that, Tennessee was selected despite losing to UTEP in the Battle 4 Atlantis.
Last year, UTEP witnessed a home schedule devoid of any college power -- and the Don Haskins Center witnessed half its seats devoid of fans.
The argument can be made that NCAA powers don't want to visit the Haskins Center. Playing in respected conferences, schools who are perennial members of the NCAA Tournament have the luxury of loading up their nonconference slate purely with home games that are guaranteed wins: Too much money is to be made for those schools to not, and the quality of their conference opponents makes up for lacking competition. It's why Kentucky wouldn't come to El Paso to commemorate 1966.
At the same time, UTEP declined an open invitation to visit Rupp Arena while being in no position to avoid elite competition.
As a member of a conference that decided to respond to NCAA realignment by over-reloading with schools that repeatedly bring down the league’s collective RPI -- resulting in a one-bid Conference USA despite tournament-worthy teams at the top of the standings -- UTEP continues to believe it can play by the same rules as power-conference schools with home cupcakes on its schedule.
The Miners should be willing to play anyone anywhere.
Participating in tournaments like the Charleston Classic helps. Renewing the series with New Mexico is a step forward.
But a program plagued by mediocrity -- continually chasing the glory of '66 -- shouldn't have holes in the part of its schedule that is strategically controlled.
Maybe my aspirations for UTEP are too high. Maybe the best days of Miner Ball exist in a bygone era. Maybe I should be content with a schedule lacking the highest level of competition possible for the sake of having out-of-conference home games.
Maybe I'll be shut up when the Miners beat defending NCAA champion Villanova in Charleston, or maybe the Miners will win 30 games with this schedule and the strength won't be an issue.
But until then, it's a thoughtless disservice to fans that we're looking at another C-USA Tournament title or bust this year -- with a regular season lacking meaning.
Disservice? DISSERVICE (he said, channeling his best Jim Mora voice...)? Translation: For years, Bob Stull has played UTEP fans and the City of El Paso for suckers. Why? Because he can. He knows mediocrity and lack of accountability are seared into the collective UTEP athletic psyche and culture. He knows this because he's helped to create that mindset over the past decade through increasingly diluted OOC schedules and failure to instill accountability in his coaches in both sports. Stull KNOWS neither the quality of the product nor the competition matters to UTEP fans, they'll continue to show up, in both football and basketball. Or not.
With sharp recent declines in attendance in both sports in recent years, one might surmise that Stull would start to get it. Apparently not. Floyd "earned" a 250 RPI last season via on-court performance and a strength of schedule that insured nothing less than a tournament championship would have qualified for the dance. Welcome to 2015...
Kudos to David Mijares for offering an honest and insightful assessment, one you would NEVER see from the UTEP Sports Information Department (AKA The El Paso Times)...
In football, Stull has given UTEP some quality home opponents. We've gotten Texas, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Kansas (top 25 at the time), and coming in 2017 we'll get Arizona.
I'd like to see Stull schedule some Iowa States or Rutgers or Colorado or Wake Forest or, now that they're bad, Kansas again to get that "Power 5" monkey off our back.
Hey at least the UTEP women's volleyball team are actually playing a tougher schedule than MBB:
2 Big 12 teams: @ Oklahoma and @ TX Tech
1 SEC team: vs. TAMU
http://www.utepathletics.com/sports/w-volley/sched/utep-w-volley-sched.html
2 Big 12 teams: @ Oklahoma and @ TX Tech
1 SEC team: vs. TAMU
http://www.utepathletics.com/sports/w-volley/sched/utep-w-volley-sched.html
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
-
-
-
The Miner Details | May 8, 2024 | Five transfer visitors on tap this week
- Latest: Parker Thune
-
Former No. 1 juco safety Marquise Gilbert previews UTEP official visit
- Latest: Parker Thune