Joe on utepia | The place for commentary for UTEP athletics

Barbee to Kentucky?

This is just a theory whispered into my ear by the proverbial office wag. It sounds good to me.

Coach Cal takes Kentucky job and hires UTEP Coach Tony Barbee as an assistant. They have a father-son-type relationship. Barbee played for Calipari at UMass and coached under him at Memphis.

Barbee can likely make as much or more money as a Kentucky assistant (recruiter) than as head coach at UTEP.

At Kentucky, Barbee will be on a higher level from which to jump back into head coaching down the road. Kentucky is THE college basketball job in the nation.

I don't put a lot of stock in talk that Memphis would hire Barbee as its head coach. Word has to be out by now that, in El Paso at least, there's some speculation that he's not nearly as good a bench coach as he is a recruiter of talent. Barbee has good talent here, but he hasn't been able to get his team into the NCAA Tournament.

Calipari to Kentucky a natural

John Calipari already walks with the big names in college basketball coaching, such as Rick Pitino and Roy Williams.

He's already got a nationally known nickname, "Coach Cal." Coach Cal has the makeup to handle all that goes with being coach at Kentucky, which is the No. 1 college basketball job in the country. He'll get the best players in the country to attend Kentucky. Look what he did at Memphis, which is in the same state as SEC power Tennessee.

Memphis, where he coaches now, is not likely to get out of C-USA and into a big conference anytime soon. There just aren't any holes for new members.

If he's offered the Kentucky job, he takes it.

Gillispies future

Billy Gillispie's next basketball job will be at a down-and-out university, but one that has a chance to get good. That's what he's good at. In El Paso we know that.

No way, in these times, are the athletes at the Kentuckys and other "good-every-year" schools going to put up with Gillispie's coaching style. That is, being relentless on the players on and off the court. Handling great players beats coaching great players at the acme of sports:

Joe Torre in baseball, Phil Jackson in basketball.

Yankees, Cowboys ... and the Kentuckys in college basketball. That's the top.

Gillispie was successful at UTEP because he inherited a down program. He was successful at Texas A@M, which was down.

You can ride players who haven't been winning games. You can't ride the players with the high pedigrees.

Long ago the Vince Lombardi style of "treating everyone equal, like dogs," went out. Even Don Haskins mellowed a whole lot his last 15 years in Utepia.

Billy will be a millionaire for life now. But his heart beats because he coaches basketball. He'll be back on a lower level, and he'll be successful there.

Miner fans speak (loud)

I'm back again. Hopefully there will be no more interruptions and better technological flow (whatever that means).

On Monday, UTEP had one of its best, and loudest crowds. It was a nobody opponent, as far as name recognition goes here (Northeastern U.), and it was in a rinky-dinky, third-tier tournament (the CBI, not to be confused with the prestigeous NCAA and the also-ran NIT).

Why, all of a sudden? The Don was fairly quiet all season. Then rafter busting for Northeastern?

Could it be that ticket prices were $10, and more (real) Miner fans could afford to go? I think so.

This puts UTEP's athletic department on kind of a spot. They need money to operate (new turf in Sun Bowl is overdue). Attendance in football is so-so. Attendance in basketball, when the audits come in, will likely show, as usual, that crowd intinial estimates were didn't match money intake. Football will likely show that, too.

Bet that The Don will be sold out, or nearly sold out, for Wednesday's and the "if-needed" April 3 game(s) in the best-of-three CBI finals vs. Oregon State.

Why?

At least Oregon State is a name, and is coached by President Obama's brother-in-law. But mostly its because the Miner fans, who have been the true, loud, cheering Miner fans, can afford a $10 ticket.

"Not I," said N'eastern to CBI

It's getting bad when a post-season basketball selection committee finds out two first-round winners don't want to host a second-round game.

This shows that the College Basketball Invitational is a pretty cruddy event. If this was the NIT, schools would be begging to be a home team.

UTEP and Northeastern (Boston) were first-round winners Tuesday. Northeastern was chosen to host UTEP in the second round.

But Northeastern said no. It's gym can't hold enough fans and the school would have taken a financial bath. You're supposed to pay the CBI $60,000 for rights to a home game. Hah! Northeastern gets only a couple thousand fans a game.

UTEP said it didn't want to host the game, either. UTEP certainly doesn't want to lose money just so it can play in a third-tier tournament. So the CBI asked (I believe begged) UTEP to reconsider, and in exchange the rights fee was lowered. They didn't say by how much.

Don't have these rinky-dink tournaments with fields of teams that can't fill one of the 64 NCAA or 16 NIT brackets. Give it up if you're not in the top 80, already. Know when to go home and die.

UTEP will sell tickets for $10 in hopes enough fans want to see their team play Northeastern Monday.

Fans buying tickets can consider themselves the UTEP stimulus package, because the school didn't do very well at either football or basketball gates this year.

Remember, UTEP has been wanting to replace its inadequate artificial turf for a couple of years now. But that takes money.

Don't lose NOW

Have been away the past week. Thanks for keeping the blog going, Posters. UTEP, in not making the 65-team NCAA field or 16-team NIT field, means it would look bad if it lost in the first round in a third-tier tournament, the worthless College Basketball Inivtational.

If you're going to accept invitations to these pay-to-play, unnecessary post-season so-called tournaments, you better win or you look bad.

Eighty-one schools made it to the legit tournaments. Don't lose to Nevada Tuesday night, Miners.

Don't say there are a lot of good basketball teams out there. Really, there are perhaps 50 real good teams. Everybody else is just the bread crumbs in the meat loaf.

But I can see why UTEP accepted the invite. Coaches don't like to tell their players "no, you can't play anymore."(Well, New Mexico State did for the second year in a row.?

I don't blame the schools. I blame the NCAA for allowing this over saturation. Stop diluting the real March Madness. Even the NIT has no real business playing along side the schools that played well enough to merit the 64-team NCAA (plus the play-in game to make it 65.

UTEP in C-USA history

Some history here regarding why UTEP chose to leave the WAC and join Conference-USA. Posters on this blog seem to forget: UTEP didn't like C-USA because it could play against the East Carolinas, UABs and Southern Mississippis. UTEP joined because it would be in a "West" division with closer-by schools: SMU, Rice, Houston and even Tulsa and Tulane.

It was looked upon as a Southwest Airlines move, if you recall back then.

What hasn't panned out, however, is fans of UTEP or any of the "West" schools taking to each other. UTEP still has no rivalries in C-USA.

If UTEP could have its druthers, it would jump at the chance of getting back with the schools that dumped the Miners, what's now the Mountain West. Fans here could identify with New Mexico, BYU, Utah, et al, the "Original WAC" schools .

UTEP's bad gamble

UTEP is taking a dangerous gamble with it's $6.50-a-ticket gimmick for Wednesday's last home game of the season.

Attendancde is at perhaps its lowest since the Miners moved into The Don in the mid-1970s.The 10,000 or more fans for conference games has dwindled to about 4,000.

What if few people come to Wedesday's game against UAB — even with the cheap ticket price?

If so, UTEP won't be able to rationalize the poor season attendance by saying it's the economy.

If few show up, even with the low prices, it will make a statement that El Paso has not taken to this year's Miners.

UTEP should not take that chance.

Choose why UTEP is 17-11

1) I've said UTEP cannot recruit the players to run Coach Tony Barbee's intentioned offense. Memphis can. UTEP can't.

2) Many of you posters say Barbee can't coach, and that's why this team is not going to the NCAA Tournament again this year.

So what is it? Or is there a:

3)?

We do know that a lot of people thought this was one of UTEP most-talented, and certainly tallest, team in quite a while. And we do know that is was expected that Barbee, in his third year now, would have a program in place.