That Will Do

C-USAnarchy

"Just For Men" hater Matt Doherty just saved his job. SMU 70, Memphis 60, in Big D.

C-USA is in the middle of a major shake-up, but the world has already ended for Memphis and its fans.

Can UTEP be "Ghostbuster's" Peter Venkman, still standing after Doherty has unleashed Armageddon?

Don't cross the streams!

UTEP Fans, the Flame

Randy Culpepper still has work to do if he wants to impress some fans in this crowd -- fans you don't really see so much as hear and read.

Sure, he scored a record 39 points and the hoop was apparently 10 feet 'round when he shot the ball Saturday against UCF, but Culpepper has yet to get his head above the rim on any of his high-flying dunks. Not just this year -- in all three seasons as a Miner.

Apparently, "career-high" only applies to points, not dunks.

It was a ho-hum 37-point win over Central Florida. UTEP had never won in MickeyWorld before so, obviously, the Golden Knights have graduated most of the talent that beat the Miners in previous seasons.

And if you want to count that five-point win over the Tigers of Memphis, go right ahead -- ignoring the facts that many of the Tigers' teeth are missing now, John Calipari most of all. That conference win streak was going to be history this season regardless, UTEP just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

What this group of Miners fails to grasp is that this is UTEP basketball. It is a program that deserves so much better than what this lackadaisical bunch of street-ballers gives it. 

You might think it's ironic the school that broke through college basketball's color barrier back in 1966 would get this kind of "street-baller" criticism from some of its fans in 2010, but more than one fan has used that term. It says what it means and means what it says, like Rush Limbaugh.

UTEP is a program where style counts. How many points would Central Florida have scored if Don Haskins was still coaching instead of Tony Barbee? 

This is a team that won a national championship 44 years ago. It went to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament 18 years ago. It is a blue-blooded basketball program despite the athletic department's lack of effort in marketing and ticket-selling.

If the Miners want sell-outs, cut ticket prices and spend some money to advertise. As for the $10 seats they do have, those should be five bucks a pop.

Forget all those other "big conference" schools that charge so much for their seats; heck, forget about the other schools in Conference USA that do so. UTEP is blue-blooded but El Paso is blue collar. Money and recruiting don't make a team great, only coaching does.

Without that great coach who can overcome recruiting and lack of budget, the Miners will have to be content with the empty seats and the lack of spark among fans who do show. The program is better than this, and some fans know it.

Some of you may wonder how serious I am with these criticisms of Tony Barbee and his program. I'll let Wayne Campbell (not "Soup", the one from the movies) explain that; you bet, I'm serious...Wayne Campbell

KLAQ Vikings Song

Viking's fan Prince ("Purple Rain"? How could we miss the signs!) came out with a Viking's "fight song" that not only fails to inspire...well, it kinda sucks. Here's the internet sample...

012210 Prince - Purple And Gold

Ah, but here's the KLAQ version...

Vikings Song

Take your pick. The Q's hits a little harder, although you have to hand it to Prince -- not too many guys can look artistic just sitting in a luxury box. 

 

UTEP-Memphis Highlights

Here's the KLAQ Morning Show take on the Miners' victory over Memphis.

Miners Memphis

And check this out from AthletixNation.com (with a thanks to Gabriel Martinez for showing us the way there). Jeremy Williams had more than one big dunk on the night, but THE dunk comes 1:40 into the highlights...Enjoy.

Miners Grind Out Win Over So. Miss

UTEP head coach Tony Barbee and Miners Isaac Gordon and Julyan Stone sound off on UTEP's solid win over the Southern Miss Golden Eagles Saturday night.

Misguided Mistaken Mark McGwire, with haiku

Just as his graying goatee defines Mark McGwire's chin more these days, we discover how weak it really is.

Irony can be cruel.

McGwire's emotional apology for using steroids is real enough, but he is bowing to Baseball to be included in the game with hopes of perhaps being part of its Hall of Fame someday.

Sadly, this may not happen even with hard support from his team, his manager, Tony La Russa, and...Bobby Knight?

011310 Bob Knight on Performance Enhancers

Ah yes, The General is best friends with La Russa. But an apologist for illegal substances? That is definitely not "G".

Don't doubt that La Russa rules the Cardinals' roost in getting the team to back McGwire, though the franchise hardly needs a push to support Mac's bid to be back in Baseball's good graces, if not Cooperstown. As a grand old baseball organization, they are solidly behind the man who raised their team and their sport from the dead.

But Baseball is a bitter old bitch of a game. 

The difference between the game and, say, Marge Schott, the late owner of the Cincinnati Reds, is that Schott -- though socially stunted and probably a racist -- was glibly honest with the world.

Baseball could never, ever be that -- not with with all those used syringes in its closet.

That's what's truly sad and upsetting about Mark McGwire's confessions and pleas for a second chance -- he's apologizing to the game. Apologizing so he can have a place in the game. Apologizing to the same game that looked away from McGwire needle in hand and looked toward all those turnstiles whirling to see Big Mac hit one out of the park.

He's apologizing to fans, the same fans that bought tickets to watch and wink.

He's not apologizing to himself, or we'd hear the whole truth. Steroids help you recover from injury, but they also help a guy who should be on the downside of his career do some incredible things in addition to a God-given gift to hit a baseball.

011310 McGwire 2nd Chance

The whole truth has room enough to give at least one more forearm bump to one-time Bash Brother Jose Canseco. Instead, McGwire dismisses perhaps the only guy telling the truth about Baseball's fast times, self-aggrandizing though he may be.

Baseball will not touch Jose Canseco, so neither will Mark McGwire.

011310 Jose Canseco on McGwire not stooping

The whole thing is sad because McGwire feels he has to genuflect to a game that, rightly or wrongly, owes part of its health to him. 

It is demeaning because McGwire seems a nice enough guy and was a likeable star, but now has to play a role and say the right things just to hold a job with -- and keep the peace for -- his old team.

As for Cooperstown, just watch: Baseball will hold seances to summon its dead heroes who will stare down at McGwire and his dirty needles through their mediums in the Baseball Writers' Association, and they will never let him into their Hall.

They will tell poor Mark McGwire the door he thinks is just ahead was already shut and locked behind him.

Born To Amble

It was a game devoid of any strong family resemblance for the home team.

Proud Papa of a hard-working defensive tradition, UTEP beat the SMU Mustangs at the Haskins Center to open both teams' Conference USA season, 49-45, in a contest born with someone else's eyes.

Credit the Miners -- having sufficiently gestated in the pre-season, UTEP had grown enough of a spinal column to play decent defense in spurts Wednesday night.

But this is still a team that has yet to have an identity fully embedded in its DNA.

Is it the team that overwhelmed SMU with nine steals and 10 fast-break points? Or is it the team that allowed open jumpers and was out-hustled on the boards by a smaller opponent yet again, 28-25?

Yes, Derrick Caracter is a full-grown man. A solid five rebounds and a game-high 18 points makes that plain. Randy Culpepper did what Randy Culpepper does, scoring 14.

But Arnette Moultrie has lost a bit of form the last couple of games. Christian Polk's tight clutch has slipped some, too, fouling out in Lubbock against Texas Tech and finishing with no points against the Mustangs.

The third millennium, A.D., may have reached double digits as we enter 2010; but other than Caracter and Culpepper, no one came close to scoring that many Wednesday night on a team that had five players averaging more than 10 points a game as of December 31, 2009.

There will be low-scoring battles, but this was a slow game. SMU had something to do with that, as head coach Matt Doherty made perhaps the smoothest coaching move he has made against the Miners.

Knowing UTEP's athleticism could overwhelm his Mustangs, Doherty had SMU drain the shot clock to the last drop.

Sure, he ripped off Air Force; but this is a coach who once forced his team into an offensive stoplight system -- some players had a green light to shoot, others a yellow, and still others a red at certain times in certain situations. And the players had to give this thought while they were playing a game.

Just call Doherty the Silver Fox after Wednesday night. But his smooth move made for a rough game that was in doubt until this...

And so, the Miners move into double-digits in the win column (10-3), stepping successfully into Conference USA play, hoping to speed things up as they ready to take on nationally-ranked BYU Saturday.

As for Wednesday, UTEP's Myron Strong talked briefly about this team's slow delivery...

Can UTEP finally deliver a healthy game against the Cougars? They're certainly past due.

Miners Not Desperate, and Maybe That's a Problem

One week the Miners show their muscles in a physical win against OU. Two weeks later, the muscles have atrophied, and UTEP let a smaller team dominate it on the boards, losing to No. 20 Texas Tech, 86-78.

There's no shame in losing a hard-fought rebounding battle to a nationally-ranked Big XII team. But losing it 48-31 to what was, in relation to UTEP, a vertically-challenged Red Raiders lineup? 

To reach the post-season tournament with the four-letter acronym the Miners need quality wins, not questionable losses. 

Defense was the ballgame, pure and simple, as Tech showed heart and chutzpah while UTEP showed it still waits for the game to come back when momentum carries it away. The problem is "momentum" usually has something to do with at least one of the two teams playing.

Even with their largest bodies on the court, the Miners sometimes played a chipmunk defense -- with sneakers on the hardwood, you could hear the squeaks but couldn't see the players.

Credit the biggest of those big bodies, Derrick Caracter -- offensively, through a stretch of the second half, he took UTEP on his considerable shoulders and answered a couple of Tech three-pointers with three-point plays.

But to win this game the Miners needed to capitol-ize with "D-C" -- defense and second-half firestarter Christian Polk -- down the stretch. They had neither after Polk fouled out with 9:20 left in the game. 

Back to the drawing board for the Conference USA season, which starts Wednesday night at the Don against SMU and everybody's favorite "Just For Men" hater, Matt Doherty.

Questions loom after this loss. Has getting so much press after the OU win and beating up on inferior teams in the Sun Bowl Invitational led to UTEP's players believing some of the hype? 

Probably not, though maybe they're enamored of how they look on the court when they're on it against smaller squads. 

Maybe the Miners need to realize that good defense rarely looks good, but rather -- as many defensive gurus say -- it is played with desperation, bug-eyed and sweaty and prone to making inadvertent noises amid great physical effort.

I've got an old VCR tape of my senior prom dance moves if they need an example.