Joe on utepia

Got the ball inside

Reiterate: GET THE BALL INSIDE!

And so it really happened Wednesday when, for the first time, UTEP played near the hoop and used its heralded 6-11 freshman Arnett Moultrie to beat a good Conference USA team on the road.

UTEP didn't try to win with jump shots from the outside — kamikaze flyers from the hinterlands of the basketball court. No. But get this: Moultrie scored 19 points and got 18 rebounds to beat Houston 62-55. Where was Moultrie all season? He was there, but others didn't make too much use of him. And, of course, Coach Tony Barbee futzes around with so many players that it's hard for a freshman to get roots.

This win was a stunner. Not only did the Miners come back from a 13-point first-half deficit, but they did it on the road against a team that had won in El Paso Jan. 14. OK, OK, Houston was without its star player who was suspended for Wednesday's game for heeling a weekend opponent. He stepped on the guy's face and then did the "crush-the-cigarette-butt" thing on his face.

UTEP is now 12-8, a whole lot better than the anticipated 11-9 heading into the game. Houston is now 12-6.

UTEP Coach Tony Barbee said of Moultrie: "Arnett Moultrie ... was he a man? He was a man tonight; 19 points, 18 rebounds, that's a man's line. He was a man among boys."

Yes, now use the man every game. Get the ball inside. And if the "man" is double-teammed, or doesn't have a path to the basket, THEN kick the ball back outside for a legitimate jump shot. HEY, or get it back inside again and see if it works then. That's good percentage basketball. And UTEP played good percentage basketball Wednesday night in Houston.

Sky dive

I'm not going to "get over" talking about UTEP needing some more blue-collar workings in order to have a good basketball season. Some keep maintaining that it's not Coach Tony Barbee's style. No kidding. And it's the wrong style for this type of talent.

UTEP (11-8) has now lost two in a row to two "blue collar" teams, neither with more so-called talent —at UAB and at home vs. Tulsa, last week.

As many people have noted before me, you're going nowhere without a half-court offense and some inside muscle. UTEP is not adept at either.

On Saturday, Tulsa's 7-foot center Jerome Jordan scored 21 points and got 14 rebounds in workman-like play, while UTEP launched its outside shooting attack.

Barbee's style is to shoot it, steal it back and shoot it again. He doesn't have the players to make that work most nights, and certainly not against teams that are coached to play more under control than are the Miners.

Now UTEP plays at Houston Wednesday, another in-your-face team that has already defeated UTEP in El Paso.

This UTEP team is going nowhere this season unless it learns to play real basketball. Leave the "CHA.AARGE OF THE HORDES" to the teams that have the better players.

Tulsa's inside game

A bottom line in Saturday's home game vs. Tulsa is how well Tulsa's 7-foot-0 "Monster in the Middle" plays against UTEP's two jump shooters.

Otherwise, other than UTEP having the homecourt advantage, the numbers for these two Conference USA teams are nearly identical.

Tulsa is 12-7 and 2-2 in the conference.

UTEP is 11-7 and 2-2.

Both lost close road games Wednesday. Tulsa lost at Tulane in overtime, and UTEP lost a miserably played game at UAB. In it, UTEP had 21 turnovers, 20 of them by and larged uncontested.

Tulsa people are saying it's time their huge center, Jerome Jordan, starts showing he's the best big man in the conference. He's touted by most as a first-round NBA pick when he leaves school.

If Tulsa pounds the middle against UTEP's weak middle, but UTEP's Randy Culpepper and Stefon Jackson are hot shooting, AND the raving half-court UTEP defense forces Tulsa turnovers (before it gets the ball inside) ...

Then it's a pick-em game.

If Tulsa gets the ball inside, turning UTEP's defense impotent, then its a pick-UTEP-off-the-floor game.

This game gives UTEP a chance to change the thinking that the Miners just don't have enough lunch-pail grit to finish with a good won-lost record. I'm still sticking with 17-13 going into the conference tournament.

UTEP's final won-lost record?

All signs point to UTEP finishing with a 17-13 regular-season record. And if the Miner still have oomph in their heads and hearts, they won't suffer a five-game losing streak, which may have started Wednesday at UAB.

Gotta question heads and hearts when Coach Tony Barbee said after Wednesday's 78-73 loss at UAB: "We had to overcome 21 turnovers agains a team that pressed us one time."

Fact was, neither team had a good night, but toward the end it was UAB shooting layups and free throws and the Miners still counting on the jump shots of Randy Culpepper (26 points) and Stefon Jackson (24).

Here's the immediate schedule. How do you see the Miners faring in their next four games:

Home vs. Tulsa Saturday

At Houston Wednesday

Home vs. Southern Miss Jan. 31

at Tulsa Feb. 7

Designer UTEP

Saturday's road win at East Carolina was designer UTEP. Coach Tony Barbee's "chalkboard" plans worked — athletic, attacking defense and a good night of offensive athleticism.

OK, here's the BUT

When I call this team "fragile," it's because no team can put "athletic" together on defense and offense enough times to win the needed 20-plus games. That is, unless the team is one of the most talented athletic teams in the country. Usually good medium-to-top-level teams need some workmanlike traits in their game as a hedge.

UTEP has shown it can play face-to-face with everyone if it's having the good athletic/athletic night. Wake Forest is a good example.

I'm thinking many will agree that UTEP is now the fourth or fifth best team in Conference USA right now: Memphis remains first. Then there's Houston and or Tulsa. Right now UAB is probably just ahead of UTEP for the No. 4 power spot.

Wednesday UTEP plays at UAB. It will take designer UTEP to win this one.

UTEP too fragile

Where's the lunch-pail, the blue-collar, on UTEP's basketball team? The Miners' theories on offense and defense are too fragile to hold up against workmanlike teams, as was Houston Wednesday. You've got to rule inside the lane and under the hoop. And when the opponent is having a hot night, you need players who will grind it out, especially at home. Hot shooters go cold. Workmanlike play doesn't.

UTEP, playing at home Wednesday, should have kept command over a good Houston team (11-3). It was a home game! But it was Houston that wiped out a Miner lead, took one of its own, then ground it out while the Miners' fragile engine was sputtering out of tune.

The Miners' strategy only works if everything is working. The Miners' record, at 10-5 before Wednesday, looked a whole lot better than what's now 10-6 with this schedule on the immediate docket:

At East Carolina

At UAB

Home vs. a good Tulsa team that played nose-to-nose with Memhis this week

At Houston

Won't win a lot like that

I just don't see UTEP beating many decent basketball teams with Randy Culpepper being the star because of his points netted from long range.

UTEP has to start getting inside. All teams need an iside game. Yes, UTEP is 10-5 and won a Conference USA road game at SMU Saturday, 74-68. But, when the Miners went cold late, a weak SMU team was coming back strong, and likely would have won had time not run out.

Yes, Culpepper got 28 points, and Stefon Jackson got 22. Culpepper does not take percentage shots, and no team can stay hot from the outside for an entire game. That means there are big blocks of time when the offense is zilch. Good teams, with inside play and a steady offense, will beat UTEP in C-USA. SMU is not a good team, but almost did beat the Miners.

UTEP's challenge is itself

Offense. Defense. Mentality.

Usually a coach talks about needing to play defense in order to win — or having to stay within the paramenters of the designed offense in order to have a chance at winning. It appears that when UTEP has its "team brain" in synch it accomplishes both. And perhaps Coach Tony Barbee, the Shrink, is needed more this year than Coach Tony Barbee, the Chalkboard Strategist.

UTEP is 9-5 because of an array of weak opponents. But when the Miners play real basketball, sans the circus acts on the offensive parimenter, and naps on defense, they have shown they can win at hotbeds such as New Mexico and win against good "team" teams, St. Mary's (neutral court). They played well, albeit in defeat, against Wake Forest.

Saturday (TV on Cable 24) the Miners open play in their kinda-weak Conference USA against one of the weakest teams among the bigger schools, the 4-7 SMU Mustangs. If the Miners truly became a "team brain" team in their double-digit win at New Mexico Tuesday, they should be able to control SMU for 40 minutes, and win by a lot of points.

This probably sounds kinda duh. Normally it is. You've got to play smart to win; everybody does. But this "team brain" thing is all that seems to be keeping UTEP as a mystery team this year.

Can the Miners put two good games together, thus be stronger in the core, when they begin a pretty tough C-USA stretch after SMU:

Houston

at East Carolina

at UAB ....

Biggest Barbee-era win

UTEP's win at favored New Mexico Tuesday was the most important victory in the three-years of Coach Tony Barbee. It can serve as a catalyst to the good season the Miners were predicted to have. And, with a 9-5 record and a Conference USA date at No. 263-ranked SMU Saturday, the win deems the Miners worthy of being on the path toward post-season participation.

Of course they have to keep it up.

Let's look at this backward. It was the biggest win of the Barbee era because a loss would have been a stomach punch to the chances of an above-average season.

Heading into Tuesday's 73-60 win over New Mexico, UTEP had the best RPI rating in its C-USA division, No. 83. Tulsa was next at 102. Three teams in the other division are higher: Memphis, 25; UAB, 34; and So. Mississippi, 82.

UTEP kept hopes of "good times in 2008-09" alive with the important victory in a most-difficult place to play, The Pit in Albuquerque.