Joe on utepia | The place for commentary for UTEP athletics

Why no draftees?

My surmise is that Stefon Jackson won't be drafted by an NBA team, but will go on to a good pro career on another continent. I'm surmising this is the general feeling of you posters out in Utepia, too. There are 30 NBA teams drafting only two rounds. And several draft choices are going to be from other countries.

But why don't NBA or the NFL teams draft UTEP Miners more often? No football players went in last weekend's draft.

Here's saying it's because the best athletes in Utepia are generally transfers from bigger schools, athletes who showed great talent in high school, blew it at their first college, and did the same at UTEP.

An example is 2008-09 basketball big man Kareem Cooper, who didn't pan out at Memphis, then came here with glowing reports of super talent. That he may have had, but he showed no oomph on the court and wound up quitting the team.

In football, UTEP gave Fred Rouse a second chance after he blew it at Florida State. He was supposedly the best receiver coming out of high school in the nation his senior year. He's off the Miner roster now, too.

Here's saying the next 100 percent Miner to go in the draft, and high up, will be junior-to-be quarterback Trevor Vittatoe.

The best talent on next year's basketball team is Derrick Character. Oops, he's a transfer from Louisville.

UTEP ideal in facilities

Now that the Miners' Foster-Stevens Basketeball Center is open, UTEP has the facilities of virtually any big-name school in basketball and football.

I can't think of what else athletes need. Can you?

Here's what I see as overall top-notch:

1. Sun Bowl/Durham Center

2. Don Haskins Center/Foster-Stevens

3. New dorms for athletes wishing to live on campus.

4. Many new eateries on Mesa near the campus.

5. The quick-bus between campus and Downtown ...

And this may be the most important of all. For a few years now UTEP has offered a general studies major. That's big because the NCAA mandates athletes pass an x number of courses in their declared major.

It can be tough on a student who finds out his chosen major isn't really for him/her. But they can't change, otherwise they fall behind on "major" credits and lose their eligibility.

OK, it's also easier to keep a bad student eligible.

What else does UTEP need, other than the previously mentioned new Sun Bowl turf and decent TV lighting in the Sun Bowl and Haskins Center?

It's time to chip in. What do you think?

Congrats academic stars

Seventeen UTEP athletes had grade-point averages of 3.75 or above this academic year, and they've been named recepients of C-USA academic medals.

On the football team, composed of some 80-plus guys, there is one honoree. He's senior defensive back George Kelly. He played in all 12 games, starting four, and he was credited with 65 tackles. Good going, George.

And I'll be the first to point out that he was a junior-college transfer, and I've been ragging on how transfers aren't the way to go in building a program.

Men's basketball had no medal winners.

The best UTEP team was soccer with 5: Denise Desilets, Flo Gutierrez, Angie Kleinfelder, Brittany Popoff and Brittany Vacca.

Softball had 3: Ashley Collazo, Kelynn Frye and Stacie Townsend. And men's track and field had 3: Hans Eriksson, Carlos Montijo and Cesar Ramirez.

Volleyball had 2: Cassandra Burruel and Marie-Therese Joyce. Men's golff had 2: Jordan Bucy and H.J. Roberts.

Joining men's football with 1 was women's basketball: Marta Micula.

UTEP in future years

This is important, too, when discussing the Barbee plan to bring in transfers instead of building with freshmen:

Probably the most recent situation of this was when Charley Bailey had built an upper-classman football program, then retired and left replacement Gary Nord with a good team. Nord went 8-4 (including Humanitarian Bowl) in 2000.

All along it was known, buy Nord and all, that he'd have nobody left in 2001. Nord said he was on a four-year rebuilding program. Then after years of 2-9 and 2-10 he changed that to a five-year rebuilding program. Then, after a 2-11, he thought he could get away with saying he was on a six-year rebuilding program.

He was fired after a 2-11 in 2003, and the truth is, he WAS building.

Nord got canned, Mike Price inherited some of Nord's rebuilding (from bottom up with freshmen) and went 8-4 and 8-4 — two bowl years.

Price didn't do a good job of continuing to build from the bottom up — have a big senior class always at hand. Now he's rebulding.

This will be 2009, and it looks like Price will be so-so, just OK. Then, finally, he'll have the best team HE built in 2010 when QB Trevor Vittatoe is a senior.

If Barbee's roster of mercenaries does real well next season, and he gets a bigger coaching job, then his replacement will be left, as was Nord. Or, if these transfers (who generally quit or were kicked off bigger-school teams) don't pan out, then Utepia is in for some hard times right now.

More transfers to Mines

This may be a pinpointer to why Miner basketball fans haven't seemed to warm up to the team, as a whole, or to Coach Tony Barbee, in his three seasons.

He's not building a team the fans can get to know. He's bringing in college basketball mercenaries, i.e., transfers who didn't make it someplace else — but maybe they can have a good year or two here. Maybe.

Today (Wednesday) the Miners were expected to sign 6-7 Jeremy Williams, who played at a Tennessee community college after he left the University of Colorado. Williams was to join early signee and high-school and community college teammate Myron Strong, a guard, who had left the University San Francisco.

Also on next season's Miners will be Christian Polk, who left Arizona State, and Derrick Caracter, who left Louisville.

This season's Miners had University of Memphis transfer Kareem Cooper, who quit the team mid-season.

Usually new signees are mostly freshmen. This year's is 6-7 forward/guard Marcus Ruppel from Deer Valley High in Glendale, Ariz.

UTEP's to-do list

Here are five things UTEP should do this summer:

1. Get a decent local TV package for road games. Out of sight is out of mind.

2. Get a decent local TV package. Other schools in Conference USA have games on TV.

3. Get a decent local TV package. ESPN won't come calling often. Also, CSTV is not national TV, as UTEP continues to advertise.

4. Get adequate lighting in The Don and the Sun Bowl. For football, as an example, ESPN brings in its own booster lights. TV games in The Don are difficult to see on TV because of poor lighting. Big sports schools, and UTEP is one, should have decent lighting for TV.

5. Replace the turf in the Sun Bowl. It never lived up to its billing; some say the hot desert sun was not taken into account with this particular product. Anyway, it's an old, worn rug now.

Your welcome. Always trying to help UTEP.

Football medical rehab

Can it be? UTEP spring football practice moving from the Glory Road field to that big physical rehab center on Mesa near the campus? No, quarterback Trevor Vittatoe is not hurt. Bet that any Miner who even breaths on the junior-to-be loses his scholarship. UTEP has absolutely no chance of a winning season without a healthy Vittatoe.

UTEP can't afford serious injuries to any of the top players. The Miners are not deep in talent — never have been. And the schedule is not favorable. No way will UTEP beat Texas or Kansas. That means the Miners will have to win seven of their other 10 games to finish with a winning season (7-5). As one poster this week correctly pointed out, a lot of any team's fortunes rest on how good the opponents will be. UTEP should be much better this year. Does that add up to more wins?

Back to the injuries: Are 23 surgeries (and counting?) somebody's fault? Bad shoes? Bad Sun Bowl turf? (Actually it is worn). Death-march-type assistant coaches?

The operative word here is FLUKE. That many injuries has to be either a FLUKE or a Rio Grande tsunami.

Now back to spring practice:

"Men," says Coach Mike Price. "Today the offense is required to sit in the whirlpool. The defense will ride stationary bikes."

Barbee situation

It's now clear Memphis didn't want UTEP's Tony Barbee to replace icon John Calipari. After many "big names" turned the job down, Memphis has hired Josh Pastner.

Who?

That's right. Pastnet, 31, was an assistant at Arizona the past six years. He, like Barbee, was also an assistant for a time under Calipari.

Not choosing Barbee, who has three years of head coaching on his resume, says something — but it is something that has to be translated.

Barbee has improved UTEP's record each year: from 14-17 to 19-14 to 23-14 this year. Why go with a 31-year-old assistant? And it can be surmised, without much argument, that Barbee would have taken the Memphis job, if offered.

Now there's a slight chance, as mentioned here previously, that Caliari might offer Barbee an assistant's job under him at Kentucky. We've been debating that for two weeks now. Would he go? Why is it better to stay here?

We don't know if there'll be an offer, and we don't know if Barbee would even accept an offer. I say he takes the Kentucky job, if he can.

Yes, the Miners improved. I'm not sure they'll be much better next year. Some of the new transfers — who quit or were run out of other schools — would have to make a great contribution. And there's the big question of who will be the Miner to direct the offense. This year the team could always go to senior Stefon Jackson. Can Julyan Stone (great at assists) be the glue that keeps the shootists togethker as a team?

I say Barbee should go, if he can. If not, well, I realize there are a lot of posters here that think he'll do a great job next season.

Barbee should have said ...

This is not how to answer the question about remaining UTEP's basketball coach, followed by what Tony Barbee should have said.

There's speculation that Barbee may leave UTEP. We all know the particulars — Memphis as head coach or Kentucky as assistant to his mentor, John Calipari. Here's what Barbee said to El Paso:

"I'm happy being at UTEP. I love El Paso. My family loves El Paso. I'm not going to deal with speculation."

He should have said: "I had expected to take this team to the NCAA Tournament. That didn't happen. I have goals to accomplish at UTEP."

That would have been more convincing.

Recall Billy Gillispie's quote when asked why he hadn't signed a contract with UTEP, even though he was in his second (final) season here:

"Seriously, I've got everyting I could ever ask for here. I'm not an "I" guy. The opportunity is everything. I love being here and I'll be here as long as they will have me."

Billy then went to Texas A@M.

Note: When Doc Sadler replaced Gillispie, he had similar quotes about loving El Paso, et al. After two years he went to Nebraska.

I'm not one to say that coaches are wrong to leave, if they can better their careers. Both Gillispie and Sadler when to those proverbial "higher places." I don't think Barbee is ready for that. He's been here three years and has not taken UTEP to a legitimate post-season tournament. And he could have addressed his situation here better than that wimpy "love El Paso" quote.

Next year's post-season

The NCAA is set to do away with the College Basketball Invitational and the CollegeInsider.com Tournament in time for next season's post-season play.

But it's answer to appeasing "March Madness" in America's college basketball fandom is totally wrong. Now they will award teams for losing.

It's to be announced this summer that the 32 first-round NCAA Tournament losers and the 16 first-round NIT losers will be seeded into a 48-team event they're calling the NCAA Second Chance Tournament.

Why do this? Money.

Recall that a few years ago the NCAA rejected a $2.5 billion offer from Switzerland-based Global Concepts to run a 16-team football national championship.

Well, they're back, this time Global CFO Loof Lirpa has offered $200 million a year if it can be sole sponsor of the Second Chance Tournament, where games will be shown on various sports networks, including the new College Basketball Channel.

I say the NCAA should have told Loof Lirpa and Global to stick their money into getting Switzerland and some other countries decent national basketball teams. Or host a new ski-jumping event.

Adding more and more games at the end of the U.S. college basketball season simply dilutes the sport.

This is not the first time Loof Lirpa has emerged on this day of the year. Like the groundhog on Feb. 2, Loof Lirpa seems to poke into sports business every April 1.