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Worst UTEP b-ball coach ever?

Worst of the 2?

  • Floyd

    Votes: 6 50.0%
  • Rab

    Votes: 6 50.0%

  • Total voters
    12

NoNCAAWinsSince1992

MI Miner Maniac
Nov 12, 2019
8,705
8,558
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This is a question with only two choices. Nobody cares about pre-Haskins and nobody would consider Haskins, Gillespie, Sadler, or Barbee as worst UTEP coach or at least they shouldn’t.

Terry is getting a pass since he’s still coaching and has had 2 seasons. He made end up as the worst, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

So who is the worst UTEP basketball coach of all-time, Tim Floyd or Jason Rabedeaux? Their time as UTEP head coach should be taken into consideration only.

Rab: 46-46 3 seasons
13-15 (4-10 WAC) 7th/8
23-9 (10-6) 3rd/9 - NIT Second Round
10-22 (3-15) 10th/10

Floyd: 138-99 7 seasons & 6 games
25-10 (11-5 CUSA) T2nd/12- NIT First Round
15-17 (7-9) 8th/12
18-14 (10-6) 3rd/12
23-11 (12-4) 5th/16 - CBI First Round
22-11 (13-5) 3rd/14 - NIT First Round
19-14 (10-8) 6th/14
15-17 (12-6) T3rd/14
1-5

Both of them left the program in shambles for their successors. Also to consider Rab coached in the WAC and Floyd coached in the really soft CUSA his last 3 + seasons and performed worse than he did with Memphis/Houston etc in the league. He was also the highest paid and had the bigger budget. Not to mention- he had higher expectations following Barbee’s departure. Rab had the impossible job of following a legend, while Floyd promised to “bring back the 80s”. Which he didn’t come close to.

Also, Rab won a postseason game and didn’t quit on his team during the season.

I vote for Floyd because of the reasons above, not so much his record.
 
You never want to follow a legend. So Rab was doomed from Day 1. Plus, Rab coached in an era in which kids weren't jumping ship. He failed to build anything.

I dont agree with Floyds excuse about the Senior led team he inherited. He had 8 returnees from an NCAA team with 5 scholarships to give. Plus he redshirted McCauley. He took some big risk with his first class and it failed so poorly it made it hard to recover. Then Isaac Hawkins ghosted him and it was over. The program went into a downward spiral.

My pick is Floyd because we haven't recovered from the damage he left behind and the fractured legacy of the program. At least with Rab, the program still had some luster to bounce back
 
Leaving after the season is over and substantially increasing your pay, is not quitting. I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand that concept though.


The season wasn't over he accepted the Auburn job before the tournament. I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand.
 
The season wasn't over he accepted the Auburn job before the tournament. I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand.

Miners lost to Butler on 3/18/10 and Barbee accepted the Auburn job on 3/24/10. If you have proof that he accepted the job before then, please link your sources. If you don’t, it’s just bullshit.
 
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Don’t know it for a fact, but have heard he told players at half time he wasn’t coming back. Something happened at half time cause the team fell apart in the second half.
 
Don’t know it for a fact, but have heard he told players at half time he wasn’t coming back. Something happened at half time cause the team fell apart in the second half.

That makes no sense. If you’re TB, the more NCAA tournament games you win, the more valuable you are. To suggest that he intentionally did anything to lose or make his team play worse in the 2nd half is ludicrous. If he makes the Sweet 16, it’s more money for him from Auburn or a better job.

If there’s one sliver of truth to that, if you’re Auburn, why would you hire a coach who would do something like that?
 
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This is a question with only two choices. Nobody cares about pre-Haskins and nobody would consider Haskins, Gillespie, Sadler, or Barbee as worst UTEP coach or at least they shouldn’t.

Terry is getting a pass since he’s still coaching and has had 2 seasons. He made end up as the worst, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

So who is the worst UTEP basketball coach of all-time, Tim Floyd or Jason Rabedeaux? Their time as UTEP head coach should be taken into consideration only.

Rab: 46-46 3 seasons
13-15 (4-10 WAC) 7th/8
23-9 (10-6) 3rd/9 - NIT Second Round
10-22 (3-15) 10th/10

Floyd: 138-99 7 seasons & 6 games
25-10 (11-5 CUSA) T2nd/12- NIT First Round
15-17 (7-9) 8th/12
18-14 (10-6) 3rd/12
23-11 (12-4) 5th/16 - CBI First Round
22-11 (13-5) 3rd/14 - NIT First Round
19-14 (10-8) 6th/14
15-17 (12-6) T3rd/14
1-5

Both of them left the program in shambles for their successors. Also to consider Rab coached in the WAC and Floyd coached in the really soft CUSA his last 3 + seasons and performed worse than he did with Memphis/Houston etc in the league. He was also the highest paid and had the bigger budget. Not to mention- he had higher expectations following Barbee’s departure. Rab had the impossible job of following a legend, while Floyd promised to “bring back the 80s”. Which he didn’t come close to.

Also, Rab won a postseason game and didn’t quit on his team during the season.

I vote for Floyd because of the reasons above, not so much his record.
Doc Sadler should be in the conversation. He's a good Xs and Os coach (no better than Floyd, though) but he did not recruit well for UTEP and he really did leave Barbee with a complete rebuild. (It's all the more impressive that Barbee was able to rebuild UTEP from scratch, with the team improving each season over the previous.)

That said, Doc did take the team he inherited from Gillispie to the NCAAs, whereas Floyd failed to do the same with the team he inherited from Barbee, so one point for Doc there.
 
Barbee completed his contract at UTEP. Stull decided to hire Floyd instead of negotiating with Barbee. Floyd quit five games into the season. Kugler also quit five games into the season. Barbee didn't quit, he successfully completed his job.

Kugler got axed.
 
Doc Sadler should be in the conversation. He's a good Xs and Os coach (no better than Floyd, though) but he did not recruit well for UTEP and he really did leave Barbee with a complete rebuild. (It's all the more impressive that Barbee was able to rebuild UTEP from scratch, with the team improving each season over the previous.)

That said, Doc did take the team he inherited from Gillispie to the NCAAs, whereas Floyd failed to do the same with the team he inherited from Barbee, so one point for Doc there.

Doc Sadler recruited Stephon Jackson and made the NCAA and NIT in his 2 seasons though.

Doc Sadler got it done against Nevada, Memphis and Houston, Floyd couldn’t and he couldn’t versus FIU and Charlotte either!
 
UTEP doesn't have the balls to act like a football program.

It took until Stull was a lame duck AD to grow balls and fire someone. The most bizzare part of the whole thing and maybe his tenure was to want bring in Dennis Erikson as the interim coach. He thought he could generate excitement and sell tickets. Shows how disconnected from reality Stull was at the end.
 
It took until Stull was a lame duck AD to grow balls and fire someone. The most bizzare part of the whole thing and maybe his tenure was to want bring in Dennis Erikson as the interim coach. He thought he could generate excitement and sell tickets. Shows how disconnected from reality Stull was at the end.
I would have loved for Stull/UTEP to have made it public they fired Kugler. Let us know that his performance is not acceptable. Instead they let the media run with ”kugler resigned” bs.
 
It took until Stull was a lame duck AD to grow balls and fire someone. The most bizzare part of the whole thing and maybe his tenure was to want bring in Dennis Erikson as the interim coach. He thought he could generate excitement and sell tickets. Shows how disconnected from reality Stull was at the end.

Put yourself in Stull’s shoes. Who could he have possibly brought in? His only options were Price, Erickson, or a current assistant. No coach worth a damn would have come in and put that stink on their name, while a new AD was coming in. You think Art Briles or someone good was going to finish out 7 games for a really bad football team?
 
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What it be a fair statement to say that Doc Sandler left Tony Barbee a program that was in similar shape that Barbee left to Floyd?
 
Kugler got axed.
Did he? He would surely have been axed at the end of the season, but was he actually axed mid-season, or did he just decide that coaching the remainder of a winless, lame duck season is no fun and instead run off with his new love interest?
 
Did he? He would surely have been axed at the end of the season, but was he actually axed mid-season, or did he just decide that coaching the remainder of a winless, lame duck season is no fun and instead run off with his new love interest?

Pretty sure it was the usual “resign or get fired” conversation.
 
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Floyd.

Not sure about the sentiment that he was a good Xs and Os coach. He drew up some really good junk defenses, ala Haskins, but his offensive sets were ****ing terrible. He was stuck in the 80s. Never evolved along with the game. If he didn’t have an Ervin Johnson, Marcus Fizer, OJ Mayo or a DeMar DeRozan, his offenses were almost alway anemic.

If everything is added into the equation, overall record, duration of stay, attitude, etc., he takes the cake, imo.
 
Floyd.

Not sure about the sentiment that he was a good Xs and Os coach. He drew up some really good junk defenses, ala Haskins, but his offensive sets were ****ing terrible. He was stuck in the 80s. Never evolved along with the game. If he didn’t have an Ervin Johnson, Marcus Fizer, OJ Mayo or a DeMar DeRozan, his offenses were almost alway anemic.

If everything is added into the equation, overall record, duration of stay, attitude, etc., he takes the cake, imo.
That’s what I meant by his arrogance. His way period. It didn’t matter his talent or the times.
 
Are some of you reading this subject of this thread as "UTEP's most disappointing b-ball coach ever"? If so, then the answer is Floyd by a landslide. But is he the worst? Definitely not. Rab has that title all wrapped up.

It's true that Rab did get us to the NIT in his second year with a team that was mostly his own recruits, though two of the Haskins holdovers (Wolfram and Smallwood) were huge. Still, all that he lost from that team was Wolfram, and while Wolf was the team's best player, the Miners still had plenty of talent and were expected to contend for the league championship and an NCAA or NIT berth the next season. They proceeded to go 10-22, losing a record number of games (at the time) for a Miner Basketball team. At that time Rab was in total free fall. From what we understand now he had issues with alcoholism and infidelity, and had four guys who were at least part-time starters the year before quit on the team shortly before the season began. Had he stayed I am sure that he would not have come close to even Gillispie's 6-24 record. Rab is easily the worst coach we've had so far.

A couple of notes on some of our other coaches:

Barbee was far from UTEP's worst coach. Doc left him Stefon Jackson, and little else. His teams improved their record every year and went to the NCAA Tournament in his fourth year. And to say that Barbee left the team in a bad spot is stupid. He left Floyd with a stacked team. Sure, it was a senior-laden team, meaning that Floyd would have to do some recruiting during the season, but wasn't recruiting supposed to be one of his strong points? Floyd stupidly ran off Moultrie before the season began, who would have been a nice building block for Floyd's second season at the helm. His coaching was inconsistent his first year, with some impressive wins and head scratching losses. Ultimately he failed to make the NCAA Tournament, but at least took the team to the NIT.

Floyd's subsequent years put him firmly ahead of Rab. He didn't prove himself to be the great Xs and Os coach at UTEP that some claim him to be, but he did put together two 20+ win seasons and make an NIT with his own players. Was he a severe disappointment at UTEP? Yes. But if Rab would have been allowed to stay at UTEP for 7+ seasons he would have never compiled near the record that Floyd did. There's a reason that Rab died as coach of the Saigon Heat rather than serving as a head or assistant coach at a US college.
 
Are some of you reading this subject of this thread as "UTEP's most disappointing b-ball coach ever"? If so, then the answer is Floyd by a landslide. But is he the worst? Definitely not. Rab has that title all wrapped up.

It's true that Rab did get us to the NIT in his second year with a team that was mostly his own recruits, though two of the Haskins holdovers (Wolfram and Smallwood) were huge. Still, all that he lost from that team was Wolfram, and while Wolf was the team's best player, the Miners still had plenty of talent and were expected to contend for the league championship and an NCAA or NIT berth the next season. They proceeded to go 10-22, losing a record number of games (at the time) for a Miner Basketball team. At that time Rab was in total free fall. From what we understand now he had issues with alcoholism and infidelity, and had four guys who were at least part-time starters the year before quit on the team shortly before the season began. Had he stayed I am sure that he would not have come close to even Gillispie's 6-24 record. Rab is easily the worst coach we've had so far.

A couple of notes on some of our other coaches:

Barbee was far from UTEP's worst coach. Doc left him Stefon Jackson, and little else. His teams improved their record every year and went to the NCAA Tournament in his fourth year. And to say that Barbee left the team in a bad spot is stupid. He left Floyd with a stacked team. Sure, it was a senior-laden team, meaning that Floyd would have to do some recruiting during the season, but wasn't recruiting supposed to be one of his strong points? Floyd stupidly ran off Moultrie before the season began, who would have been a nice building block for Floyd's second season at the helm. His coaching was inconsistent his first year, with some impressive wins and head scratching losses. Ultimately he failed to make the NCAA Tournament, but at least took the team to the NIT.

Floyd's subsequent years put him firmly ahead of Rab. He didn't prove himself to be the great Xs and Os coach at UTEP that some claim him to be, but he did put together two 20+ win seasons and make an NIT with his own players. Was he a severe disappointment at UTEP? Yes. But if Rab would have been allowed to stay at UTEP for 7+ seasons he would have never compiled near the record that Floyd did. There's a reason that Rab died as coach of the Saigon Heat rather than serving as a head or assistant coach at a US college.

Thanks for chiming in on this. Those are fair points. Rab was an assistant at Marquette a few years after UTEP though. That alleged cheerleader trim sure did wreck his life, quite sad.

I think that Barbee is extremely underrated by some fans here. He did an excellent job and who knows what he would have been capable of if Auburn didn’t come knocking.
 
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