UTEP sports blog: Joe Muench has been a sports writer and a sports editor in El Paso for decades, but he’s best known as the columnist everyone loves to talk about. His UTEP athletics blog starts up the conversation again.
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Below is our last preview podcast of the Sun Bowl before the big game. It's a special podcast because along with hearing Joe, Bill, Pablo and Jay talk their nonsense, you'll get to hear audio highlights from the coaches taken today at the Sun Bowl luncheon. Check it out. And if you'd rather download the mp3, that link should be available soon at Sun Bowl Mania.
This is directed at UTEP basketball experts (everybody with a favorite team is an expert, by the way):
Does it concern you that the Miners, albeit 8-2, have won their last three games by only 9, 8 and 6 points, respectively. It wasn't like they beat top teams, either: Southeast Louisiana, South Carolina Upstate and Wyoming.
I'm still predicting a 10-2 start with a win at Texas Southern Saturday and a home win against New Mexico Wednesday. Recall UTEP beat Texas Southern here Nov. 18 by 21 points.
I would say, though, that the Miners, who aren't blowing anybody out, won't be sweeping through Conference-USA as some "experts" think.
Another thing to think about, experts: In all 10 games so far, one man, Stefon Jackson, has been the Miners' leading scorer.
When you get into conference play, and opponents know who you are and what you can and can't do, they can mess with Jackson by playing special defenses just to stop him. UTEP needs two or three other guys who can get 20 points if Jackson is having a cold night due to a shooting slump or battling defenses devised to stop him.
Podcast: Sun Bowl forecast - football and fun
This second of three-planned Sun Bowl previews features football talk, Baby Bash jams and talk about the pomp around the Sun Bowl. Take a listen.
If you want to listen to the first podcast, or get up to date on the rest of the Sun Bowl news, visit Sun Bowl Mania.
And if you have any questions or comments for the next podcast, call our podcast phone line at 546-6130. Leave a message with your question or comment, and we'll use the audio of the call on our next podcast.
So much for Bob Stull being on a short list for the AD job at Nebraska. Tom Osborne will continue to serve in that position until 2010, the AP has reported.
Junior Stefon Jackson will undoubtedly carry a large statistical load on his shoulders this UTEP basketball season. Somebody's got to do it.
But let not the needed role of "cool-headed team leader" be missing from his game.
This blog was all over Jackson last season because, in late-game pressure situations, he was the Miner who stepped on the out-of-bounds line; he would be the Miner who made the silly reaching foul(s) when the game was on the line.
To his credit, he was not afraid to take the ball and go for the win. He was not afraid if he gagged once in a while.
This year, albeit early in the season, Jackson looks to have grown some tree bark over the raw green of his derring-do. He has spendid statistics and he seems to be among the calmer players on a run-and-shoot outfit.
Shoot and shoot and shoot whenever ... and who cares from where. So far, anyway.
In a 5-2 start, Jackson is averaging 25.9 points a game, up from 18.6 last year. He is shooting 52 percent, up from 46. He's commiting fewer than 2 turnovers a game ... yah, yah, yah it's early. But those are good stats nonetheless.
It's understood that Tony Barbee coaches to a "yah-hooo, bronc-buster" offensive style. If you have the athletes (a la Memphis), you can win that way. And it sure helps recruiting when guys know they'll be allowed to perform a double-axel spin-dunk — from the tuck position — if they have a path to the basket.
But, in the clutch, when the game is real close, good teams need a cool-headed leader. This year that has to be Stefon.
If he can do that the next two years, even though he's not a point guard, his name will be right there in Utepia with the great guards of Haskins yore.
You can listen to the latest UTEP basketball podcast by clicking here.
Looking ahead at some coming games, the podcast includes discussion of voodoo curses and gravestones. A special podcast, indeed, led by Joe Muench, Fred Albers and Ruben Ramirez.
And if you have any questions or comments for the next podcast, call our podcast phone line at 546-6130. Leave a message with your question or comment, and we'll use the audio of the call on our next podcast.
This is not a wild prediction, anybody could make this one: UTEP's immediate schedule calls for five straight wins, four at home. That would put the Miners at 10-2.
The point I'm making is that bloggers shouldn't start to think a 10-2 is deserving of a national ranking. Remember, the only decent team UTEP has defeated so far is New Mexico State (twice). And those Aggies are big disappointments to their fans so far. They have a losing record.
UTEP is now 5-2. Do you see a loss? I don't:
Dec. 19 - SE Louisiana
Dec. 21 - Univ. of S. Carolina Upstate in the tournament
Dec. 22 - Wyoming (probable foe in the tourney title game). Wyoming is 5-7 so far.
Dec. 20 - at Texas Southern
Jan. 2 - vs. New Mexico. The Lobos are 8-4, but it's a UTEP home game.
UTEP won't lose again until it plays at Texas Tech Jan. 5, its last game before the Conference-USA schedule begins. And since UTEP played well for a while at Texas A&M, it's possible to beat Tech in Lubbock.
UTEP won't be ranked in the Top 25 at 10-2, but wins over NMSU (2), Wyoming and New Mexico will make the Miners look good on the RPI.
To hear the latest UTEP men's basketball podcast, click here.
Joe on Utepia -- along with Fred Albers of KTSM; Bill Knight, UTEP beat writer; and Ruben Ramirez, photo editor and UTEP superfan -- will get you up to date on the season so far, including two victories over rival NMSU.
And upgraded contract?
UTEP football coach Mike Price, off two losing seasons in a row, says he is talking with Athletic Director Bob Stull about an upgraded contract. His present contract, with a lot of incentives for winning, runs four more years. He hasn't earned the right for a raise.
Yes, other coaches around get more money. Mack Brown at Texas makes 10 times as much as Price, whose base salary is about $260,000.
Then Price gets $10 for every season ticket sold after 10,000 and $1 for each fan who goes to a UTEP home game.
NOTE: That's not $1 for every announced fan. That's $1 for every audited ticket. If UTEP announces a crowd of, say, 35,000, figure the real ticket sale for that game is about 22,000. This year attendance was not good.
The deal here is El Paso can't afford to pay a high base salary, even for a coach as notable as Rose Bowl-goer Price. But it can afford to pay Price extra if he, himself, brings in more fans and he recruits and coaches well enough to have a winning season. And the better and better the season, the more the incentives escalate.
He gets bonus money for such things as: a winning season, conference championship, going to a bowl, conference coach of year ... finishing nationally ranked.
There's radio-show money, youth camp money, too. There's a lot of money to be had if his team is popular with El Pasoans.
Yes, he's considered a candidate to go back and coach at Washington State. He said he talked with Arizona State last year.
But Price has been 5-7 and 4-8 the last two years. He has not turned UTEP's program around — yet, anyway.
This year was his worst of four seasons. It is not the right time to be asking for a better deal.
Bottom line: He was hired to win games, and to get more money he has to do that.
Can this be true? Only 6,786 fans came to this week's New Mexico State home game against state rival New Mexico? That's what the school shows on its box score available on it's Web site: www.nmstatesports.com
Awful.
That low attendance should be an advantage for UTEP when the Miners go play at NMSU Saturday night. Need one say, "plenty of tickets available."
It used to be that a bad Aggie team would draw that many fans for a game against Western New Mexico.
NMSU was supposed to be loaded with talent this year. A loss to North Texas, dropping the Aggies to 3-6, lost them a lot of backers, apparently. Thing is, the Aggies beat New Mexico on the night only 6,786 fans showed up.
Bad times for the sports budget in Aggieland.
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