Turn Up the Orange | UTEP sports talk

Who knows?

Who can figure out this Miner team? They lose to Houston at home, then beat them in their house.

They get whupped by NMSU in Cruces, but return the favor in El Paso.

I can't figure it out.

Now that's what I call flagrant

Bill Knight reported in Tuesday's El Paso Times that Houston guard Aubrey Coleman will be suspended during Wednesday's game against UTEP.  The story said Coleman will miss his rematch with the Miners because of a flagrant foul on Saturday in a game against Arizona.

But the story doesn't explain that the "flagrant foul" was much more unsportsmanlike than it sounds. Check out the video:

But Karma came back to bite Houston. I'll let Eric Sorrentino explain it, because his post on the incident is where I originally learned about it:

Houston led this game by 10 points with 52 seconds left and couldn't close it out. Arizona's Nic Wise hit a three-pointer with 10 seconds left to force overtime. Arizona went on to win, 96-90. Wise, coincidentally, is a Houston native.

That's what I like to call Karma.

Coleman deserved to be ejected. And Houston fittingly lost the game.

Hopefully, that bad Karma will continue and help UTEP get a much-needed road victory on Wednesday.

New postseason tournament created

For those UTEP men's basketball team fans that have lost the faith and believe the team's slide will keep them out of the NCAA tournament, there is hope the team will still play in a postseason tournament.
From the Associated Press:

A new men’s postseason basketball tournament has been scheduled in March by CollegeInsider.com for 16 teams not chosen for the NCAA and NIT tournaments. It announced Monday that the single-elimination tournament will be held at campus sites with teams chosen by a 14-member committee that includes nine former college head coaches. To be eligible, teams must have a winning record against Division I opponents. Priority will be given to schools whose conferences have fewer than half their teams in the NCAA and NIT. CollegeInsider.com said the NCAA and National Association of Basketball Coaches have been consulted and are aware of the tournament guidelines. Another 16-team tournament, the College Basketball Invitational, began last year with Tulsa beating Bradley in the best-of-three championship series.

UTEP lost to Utah in the inaugural College Basketball Invitational last year. It wasn't immediately clear if the Collegeinsider.com tournament would be a pay-to-play tournament.

The CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament is a single-elimination tournament, consisting of four rounds, with the first three rounds being played at on-campus sites, which will be determined by seeding. The inaugural championship game will be played at an on-campus site to be determined by seeding.

Former New Mexico State coach Lou Henson and former Arkansas coach and Miner great Nolan Richardson are on the Collegeinsider.com selection committee.

UTEP basketball, and cheerleader, thoughts

Finally got some tickets to a UTEP game (thanks, boss!), so I better blog something about it, I reckon.

Shake it

Before I get to basketball, I found it weird that all the dance songs the cheerleaders danced to were rap odes to strip clubs and/or tramps.

First up last night was the cheerleaders dancing to Lil' Wayne's Lollipop. Now that song is just nasty.

Next up was the Golddiggers dancing to Big Boi's Kryptonite (sample lyric: At dis time I'll need all my freak hoes to get down on the flo').

I felt the same way last year when the UTEP women's basketball team celebrated their NCAA berth by dancing to T-Pain's Apple Bottom Jeans. Catchy song and all, but again, it's about a good night at the strip club.

Kind of weird.

Basketball

OK, now that that's out of the way, on to basketball.

As usual, I spent most of the night yelling at Culpepper. I won't rehash that argument.

Center Kareem Cooper showed some skill and scored 21 points. But the Big Boi seriously lacks endurance. He could be a killer if he gets in shape. Something to keep an eye on.

My favorite guy to watch, Julyan Stone, dished out six assists, most going to Cooper. And that's what the team needed against Houston on Wednesday night: the ball going to Cooper. Once he got the ball, he was rarely stopped.

Stone has 99 assists on the year. The second-best number is Stefon Jackson with 36 assists.

Unfortunately, Stone has a hard time playing defense and he kept getting torched by Aubrey Coleman. But to give credit, Coleman was pretty awesome. He made some difficult shots.

What else?

Well, I'm not sure the refs were as bad as the hometown crowd would have you believe. But they were a little touchy. One T'd up Tony Barbee, and another spent some of the waning moments staring down Barbee instead of keeping his eye on the game.

Discuss.