On honors and jerseys

Tim Floyd has done something much needed for the UTEP basketball tradition. He has gotten a committee formed to come up with honoring former Miner basketball players. The tradition at the university is rich and those from the past should be recognized.

Floyd and the committee have created three categories — legends, honored jerseys and retired jerseys.

The legends are recognized at the halftime of a game, honored for their basketball accomplishments at Texas Western/UTEP.

The honored jerseys are like Antonio Davis in Wednesday night's game against Eastern Carolina. Davis will have his jersey hung against the wall above the tunnel with the two others that have already been honored — Ed Haller's No. 12 and Charles Brown's No. 25. Those jersey numbers may still be worn.

And, obviously, the retired jerseys are hung out front, just above the tunnel, and cannot be worn again. They are Tim Hardaway, No. 10, Nate Archibald, No. 14, Nolan Richardson, No. 42 and Jim Barnes, No. 45.

They will only retire a couple of jerseys a year, so they are done for this season. More will come next season.

 

Comments

[David]

Great, but why not wait until next year when the miners will have huge home games like Oregon, UNLV, and Memphis (all likely to be sold out)?

[miner maniac]

Assuming that the rule is still in place that jersey numbers cannot begin or end with a 6, 7, 8, or 9, that only leaves 36 available jersey numbers by my count. Four are already retired, and a normal roster is anywhere between 12 and 15. You're going to run out of available jersey numbers real quick! I'm all in favor of honoring our past legends, but am not a huge fan of retiring numbers either.

And on the subject of banners, can you explain Bill why there still isn't a 2011 NIT postseason appearance banner?

[Scorekeeper33]

Did anyone see the "antics" of the Marshall basketball team when they were playing UCF. I know UTEP lost by a bunch to them, but is this the type of coaching they're facing in this league?