I'd love to see UTEP finally make the NIT quarterfinals.

[FeralFelidae]

The semis would be sweet (Madison Square Garden!) but I would settle for the quarterfinals. It's amazing to me that with UTEP's storied basketball history, they've never made the NIT quarterfinals (why is that???).

Making the quarterfinals would make UTEP history and I would consider that a success.

 

[East Coast Miner Fan]

Unless I am mistaken, the NIT did not use to seed teams. Home games were set up for bigger state schools in the later rounds. That's why UTEP would always get a home game (to sell first round tickets) but seldom play at home for the second round (despite having a better record or RPI). The only time I could remember when we played at home in the 2nd rd of the NIT is when we lost to NMSU. After that, we got sent to play at Georgetown (at a high school gym), at Memphis, and at Michigan where we lost. I'm still annoyed we got sent to (and lost) to UNM in the last NIT trip.

This post was edited on 3/17 3:41 PM by East Coast Miner Fan

 

[FeralFelidae]

But I would expect UTEP to have at least won one of those games, especially if they really had a higher RPI, or at least beat NMSU in '96 when we did get the home floor.

 

[utep2step]

Boy I remember that G'town game in their gym was mess because Thompson refused to travel to UTEP and Haskins was not a happy camper.