I just wanted to add my thoughts to the myriad of discussions currently surrounding UTEP basketball:
There is certainly more that I would like to complain about, but the above is enough for now. I’m still amazed that Tim Floyd hasn’t found success in his seventh year coaching the team. Unfortunately, with next year being a(nother) rebuilding year, he won’t find that success any time soon. It’s time to bring in another coach to fix the mess that has become UTEP Basketball.
- Last year I stated that I wanted to give Coach Floyd until the end of this season to either win a CUSA title and/or make the NCAA Tournament before calling for his ouster. It is apparent, however, that this Miner team is not going to accomplish either of these goals this year. As much as it disappoints me to say it, Tim Floyd needs to be removed as head coach of the UTEP basketball program.
- Speaking of this season, can we stop calling it a rebuilding year? It is anything but. A rebuilding year is what we were supposed to be going through last year. A rebuilding year involves bringing in a large number of new people around whom you hope to build a base for future success. It was obvious that this wouldn’t be a true rebuilding year before the season even began. Despite the fact that, at the time, only two spots appeared to be available on the roster at the end of this season, Floyd talked about the seven new players coming in next year. It was obvious then that Floyd had no plans to grow and develop the talent on the current roster into a successful team. He’s now looking at next year to be his rebuilding year.
- I wish that Floyd would quit living in the past. He will still occasionally mention the large number of seniors that were on the roster when he took over this job. He’s had six recruiting classes to deal with that issue. He is still complaining about the fact that Isaac Hamilton didn’t honor his NLI. He’s had three recruiting classes to replace him since he left. He also complains about the fact that Vince Hunter decided to leave early. From his comments, Floyd was surprised when he learned about Hunter’s decision, despite the fact that everyone else in town seemed to know the entire season that Vince was looking to leave. I remember Barbee saying after Moultrie’s freshman season that his hardest recruiting task was convincing the young big man to stay. Floyd needed to spend Hunter’s sophomore season doing the same. Also, Floyd has had two recruiting classes since Vince left to bring someone in to replace him. He hasn’t.
- Floyd spends a lot of time complaining about the “transfer epidemic”, but truth be told he is a huge part of the problem. He has over recruited every year that he’s been here, with an eye on replacing whomever he believes to be the weak links on the team. Next year’s class of seven is just the latest example. Floyd’s problem is that some of the guys that he didn’t want to kick off (Hamilton, Hunter, McSwiggan, Lee Moore) have decided to leave as well.
- PURPLEFIRE asked whether or not NMSU would have been able to win CUSA any of the last five years. Others on here have often trash talked the Aggies, saying that the only way that they’ve been able to go to the NCAA Tournament so often lately is because the WAC is so weak. To answer PURPLEFIRE’s question: I don’t know, but they would have fared better than we have. We have absolutely no right to trash talk the Aggies. We have lost the last four in a row to them, and seven of the last nine. Their basketball program is head and shoulders above ours right now.
- While we’re talking about conferences, I have mentioned in the past that I hate it when our current conference affiliation is used as an excuse for our poor basketball team. We haven’t won one conference championship in this latest version of CUSA, and what is the conference affiliation of the rest of those teams? To even further my argument, let’s take another look at the Aggies. The WAC has theoretically been a weaker conference than CUSA, but the Aggies have still found a way to clean our clock. It’s obvious that they have better coaching than we do.
- Ah, hell, I guess I’m not yet quite ready to stop talking about the Aggies. I guess it’s because I’m still upset at getting drubbed by them yet again. But here’s one more (sarcastic and brilliant) look at how ridiculous it is that they are so much better than us, provided by minermx07:
- There has been some talk about how even Coach Haskins had stretches of time where he struggled. This is true. You can also look at our struggling women’s team, which currently stands at 2-6, yet no one is calling for Coach Adams’ head. Is this fair? Of course it is! By the time Coach Haskins endured his lean years, he had proven that he could win conference championships, take teams to the NCAA Tournament, and had, of course, won a national championship. Coach Adams has taken a program that had no history or tradition and guided them to two NCAA Tournament appearances, including a first round win in 2008, and two WNIT appearances, making deep runs each time. Under Floyd we have had no conference titles, no NCAA appearances, two blowout losses in the first round of the NIT and another blowout loss in the first round of the CBI. Haskins and Adams earned their leeway here at UTEP. Tim Floyd hasn’t.
There is certainly more that I would like to complain about, but the above is enough for now. I’m still amazed that Tim Floyd hasn’t found success in his seventh year coaching the team. Unfortunately, with next year being a(nother) rebuilding year, he won’t find that success any time soon. It’s time to bring in another coach to fix the mess that has become UTEP Basketball.
