I have no problems with playing Sul Ross. Like you said, every team plays these type of games, and they help a coach see how guys play under the lights, experiment with lineups, etc. I just don't think that anyone should get excited over a win like this, and, like KaneFan pointed out, we play three of these games again this year. Now that's pathetic.
UTEP v Sul Ross Game Thread
- Thread starter MinerManiac
- Start date
My dad and I went and stayed for just the first. Hard to read anything from the results of what was a glorified scrimmage but it's always better to play well against lower tier teams than bad. Liked what I saw from most of the returning players, and bynum and Barnes both looked good in stretches. I like what our guard depth could look like.
Lack of interior play will hurt us again this year. Our bigs combined for almost 40 minutes between 5 guys. Looks like Kalu, Hamilton and Jones will split minutes and we play guard heavy lineups going 6-7 deep.
I guess Wickware is buried at the end of the bench and Mbengue is coming off a knee injury.
Meanwhile Onyema got his 5 minutes off the bench for UT and Golding can't recruit any bigs.
I guess Wickware is buried at the end of the bench and Mbengue is coming off a knee injury.
Meanwhile Onyema got his 5 minutes off the bench for UT and Golding can't recruit any bigs.
UTEP did what was expected. For me, the season truly begins on Saturday. It’s a decent test and a strong indicator of what we can expect from the team this year.
It’s a completely different level. If UTEP were to lose to a D2 football team, it might be time to call it quits as a program.
FCS teams can offer 63 scholarships. Schools like Southern Utah, North Dakota St, Montana, Texas Southern etc
D2 teams can offer 36 scholarships. Schools like Western New Mexico and other mostly rural schools.
That’s for football. There’s a big difference.
Sul Ross was D3 last year, which has no athletic scholarships. UTEP scheduled them 2 years ago when they were D3.
FBS vs. D2 matchups are very rare. I remember NMSU playing Western New Mexico around 20 years ago and dominating them. An FBS team, even the lowest ranked one, should never lose to a D2 team. I imagine some D2 teams have upset some FCS teams. Not sure though and don’t care to look it up.
Would you rather see UTEP play at and probably lose by 25 to one of those teams or stay home and beat D2/NAIA teams by 40 in front of 2000 people?
Ironically, neither of those options would impact our NET ranking. In fact, I remember our rating actually improving after a loss to a highly ranked team. Just imagine, if we could secure a few road paychecks, maybe even pull off an upset. Then we could afford to bring in a quality home game for our fans. Wishful thinking, I know.
I don’t think we should be worried about NET ranking at this point. Losing double digit games every year makes any ranking number we have irrelevant.
In my opinion, the solution to the big problem, is to play Kalu when we need more of a defensive presence and play Hamilton when we need to generate more offense from the interior. I know DH can be a liability with Golding's style of defensive play, however when Hamilton is in, STOP fvcking hedging the big. Let him play more of a traditional post hanging out in the defensive paint. It isn't rocket science, but Golding never seems to adjust to his personnel. Drives me nuts!
Both of those guys are serviceable...especially at the level of CUSA play.
True that. We’re in year four under Golding now, and I can still remember year four with Barbee. It’d be great to see something similar this time around.
A big difference is that we improved every year under Barbee, and his 2nd and 3rd team had winning records against D1 competition. His 3rd team wasn't that far away from being an NIT team. The best thing that can be said so far about Golding is that in his first year he did better with Terry's players than Terry did, despite not having Bryson Williams. But based on what Terry did here that's a low bar.
What a time. I remember there were fans that wanted him fired before that season. All because of 3 Billy/Doc years. Posters called the CBI the Coach Barbee Invitational.
Now, most fans are okay with Bronzeing getting 7 years and 2,000 fans a game.
In 2009-10, UTEP played neutral site games vs Ole Miss and Oklahoma, Texas Tech on the road, BYU & Air Force at home, along with the NMSU series.
Honest question(s). Are you just trying to emphasize a point? Do you sincerely believe anyone is ok with the results CJG has gotten through 3 years...especially if he continues at this rate? I don't know one person who is ok with the results. Everyone that I've talked to says this is the make or break year...if they don't say he should've already been fired.
I do. That is why he is still the coach. The season ticket holders still bought enough tickets for Senter not to worry about it. I have not seen any cheerleader fans upset with him being coach. They all have recency bias from the CUSA championship game.
I think reaching the CUSA title game earned him another year. Without that appearance, I’m not sure he’d still be the coach today. Plus, with the buyouts for Walden from Austin Peay and Dimel’s final year, there isn’t much budget left to cover Golding’s buyout for the remaining two years. This season should be make or break for him, NCAAT or bust.
I don't think that is true. We have seen how Senter is content with sub par to mediocre results. That is the reason he is still coach. I think the 2000 fans in attendance that you mention fans are ok with, it is actually Senter who is ok with it. There are very few "cheerleader" fans on here in support of the results. I think most don't feel the need to keep repeating their dissatisfaction with such frequency. It won't change anything.
For me, the frustrating thing about Hamilton is that we are still talking about limited minutes due to poor conditioning after 3 years in the program. His offensive presence was a big reason for the run last year in the tournament, and I was hoping for a jump in conditioning at the very least.
I agree both him and Kalu are serviceable guys, but both have pretty significant limitations as well. My question is who is going to play the four? I don't see a capable PF one on the roster. Golding mentioned playing Frazier and/or Horton at the four spot. I think we can see how that is going to go in terms of rebounding. This was/is a big opportunity for Jones. I'm just not sure I see it with him.
Hamilton seems to be similar to Claude Britten in that he doesn’t seem to be capable of significantly increasing his conditioning. I would imagine Golding has pushed him hard the last several years. That’s why I think limiting his movement on the defensive end would help tremendously in terms of court time. Maybe I’m wrong. It just seems so obvious.
As far as the 4 goes, one has to wonder why EJ can’t fill that void. Focus? Skill? Effort? A combo of all those? Seems like we’ll be playing sans a 4 guy most of the time, which will suck rebounding wise, as you alluded to.
People here have said in the past that it's his defense. I don't live in El Paso much less watch practice so I don't know, what I do know is that when he has played he has seemed to have a smooth shot around the rim, I mean have we ever heard of coaches not playing the best players?
I feel like Jones had tons of confidence early on last season. Then for some reason it was snatched from him. I would have kept playing him and pushing him to get better knowing he would play an important role moving forward. We know it's there. We've seen it before. Hopefully his game progresses again as the season moves forward. He's our best 2-way big.
For some reason I thought Wickware could step in for some minutes. Unless injured I guess he's not ready. The lack of recruiting and NIL funds have really killed Golding in the big man department. I hope Z invests his money well.
There’s no way for us to know for sure, however I think even without that CUSA tourney final appearance, CJG would still be our coach. I think it definitely justified Senter’s reason(s) to keep him though. Budget being another.
A supporter I know who watches their practice told me that seven footer Mbengue has a brace on his knee and it is not quite 100%. Kalu, Big Ham and Mbengue are big men but fans have not just seen that seven footer performance, yet. Big Ham does give good one and one D, but gets burned not sliding down for baseline help at times.
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Relax it's one game... How the hell are you going to judge the bigs off of that?
There’s pretty much no fans on twitter voicing their displeasure with the basketball program. This site is a fraction of Miner fans.
He's judging them mostly based on what they were last year. The one game this season did provide us with enough info to know the following:
- Kalu still hasn't developed any offensive skills. If he had, he would have shown them against his smaller, slower opponents last night.
- Hamilton is still out of shape.
- Hamilton is still being asked to hedge on defense, something that he is incapable of doing.
- Jones, the most talented four we have on the team, played only 11 minutes. Only three players played fewer minutes. That's enough to infer that Golding still doesn't want Jones on the floor.
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If they promoted the game better would you have attended? I doubt it, so there’s no reason to waste those resources there. Arizona played canisus in their opener, it’s something that normally happens in the first few games. I’m sure Fili gets excited watching cause it shows what he would look like out there against them boys. There’s better games coming
I personally would not have attended. I didn’t even watch the game. I have never attended a non-D1 game and I stopped going to FCS football games, but I will still watch those.
I would consider attending one of these bullshit games if they held it elsewhere or made it “special”.
My point is, UTEP doesn’t do anything to try and promote the game or gain new fans.
Out of curiosity, how many basketball and football games did you attend last year?
Yeah I didn’t make the game the game out their either but did watch it on espn+. My point is that regardless of what they did, even give free tickets, it wasn’t gonna be much different. I will be there for majority of the games though
I was at the game.
Yes, we blew out a D2 team, but the coaching staff was blowing gaskets on missed defensive assignments or bail out fouls. We are a long ways away from what the defense should look like.
Big man Hamilton is still a project.
Yes, we blew out a D2 team, but the coaching staff was blowing gaskets on missed defensive assignments or bail out fouls. We are a long ways away from what the defense should look like.
Big man Hamilton is still a project.
Do you really believe, that was the goal of this game? I think some of you are going a little too harsh, early on... Given the guards this year, the big guys are good enough to get it done. Sure they will struggle against the bigger teams, but they should be fairly competitive against CUSA play. I personally hope, Golding, does not allow large droughts of not scoring like he has in the past. A decent test this Saturday for the Miners.
I agree with Maniac, however I think you make some fair points. And I share the hope of not going through offensive droughts like in previous years.
Maybe my goals/expectations for the team are higher than yours. It's year 4 AND we are now headed to the MWC soon. Golding needs to step up his game.
It's too early to decide if our guards are any better than last year...
We'll see what happens or if anything has changed or improved. I agree on the drought issue as that needs to be better as well.
