UTEP at Tulsa

I'll be out of range Saturday. Use this space for comments on UTEP's basketball game at Tulsa.

Comments

[sick-o-joe]

UTEP will likely beat Tulsa Saturday. Question? Can Utep beat Tulsa a third time in Tulsa if they are set to meet again?

[shyminer]

Go Miners!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[fireman]

if we can get jordan in foul trouble again its ours..but it will be hard this time since will be playing..but would one more loss hurt us...i dont think so i prefer being a 10-12 seed in the tourney and play a over-rated 5,6,7 team rather than an 8-9 and play a #1 seed in the 2nd round....but still lots of ball to be played..

[Louster]

Our Miners are playing their best ball of the season....so far. They'll peak at tournament time. I predict a double digit win @ Tulsa tomorow but I'll rejoice at a 1 point win.
Go Miners!!

[Robert J. Barraza]

All the Miners have to do is stay focused. They are the better team and currently rule C-USA. Just keep playing the way you know how, and we will take the national championship this year. Watch out Kentucky and Kansas, here come the MINERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Canaima]

It will be a tough game - and with more difficult games ahead (Southern Miss, UAB) and Memphis hanging just a game back - the Miners cannot afford to lose. They had better play hard, get in Jordan's face and control Uzoh or they might find themselves in the NIT (again).

[rj]

I think most Miner fans (including myself) chalked this one as a loss earlier in the season, so I wouldnt be terribly dissapointed if we went down, but very surprised if we won.

People seem to forget that Tulsa is desperate for this win, they lose this one and they're done, no NCAA aspirations at all, unless they win the CUSA Tourney, which isnt a lock because they may be playing in their hometown, but not in their home arena.

I hate to be negative, but I say Tulsa 64 UTEP 60.

[stahala]

I don't think UTEP will drop a game until the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament. I really really think that. OK, so they may not make the sweet 16, but I don't feel foolish at all saying they wont drop another conference game, including the CUSA tourney.

Yeah, definitely my heart speaking, but there are several unbiased college basketball analysts who would say this is very possible.

But if the Miners were to lose to Tulsa, lets remember, it is not the end of our season. A trip to the dance and even a win in the dance would still be likely. Expect Tulsa to give UTEP one of their best performances of the season. Expect UTEP to answer.

[Alonzo Lopez]

My heart is always pulling for the Miners and my mind reminds me that champions find a way to win in all situations. This road game will be tough but if the Miners want respect, they have to take this game from Tulsa. They have played a strangling kind of defense in some games and they will need that D to win. Go Miners!

[CLEOFITZWITZ]

The Miners need to continue to step up the defense which is constantly improving. I think we figured out Jordan in the 2nd half of the game in El Paso. We can't take him one on one so we keep a defender lurking to help if he beats his man. I would worry about Uzoh or Hurtt going off. Again, if we play with defensive intensity, we should be ok.

[Pugapalooza]

Stahala, it's nice to see the optimism and I have to agree that the Miners have been playing at a level we haven't seen since Gillespie was coaching. Barbee is doing a great job of keeping the team focused on defense. We all know this team can score. Today's game should be a good one. As long as the refs let the bigs down low play without ticky tack fouls being called this should be a great game and the Miners should pull it out. Defintely won't be surprised if Tulsa pulls it out but dissapointed with the way the Miners have been playing. The team doesn't need to worry about AP/Coaches polls just worry about winning and the rest will take care of itself. Go Miners!

[Lorenzo]

Very nice win for the Miners today. I've been pretty optimistic about the Miners even before the season, but even I didn't see them winning at Tulsa. How bout road wins at UAB, Memphis and Tulsa all in the same year?? NCAA tourney hopes are looking good right about now.

[CLEOFITZWITZ]

Great road win! We got an early lead, withstood the inevitable Tulsa rally, hit free throws and sealed the deal!

One question. What do we do on Senior night?

[Pepto Bismol]

I expected Tulsa to pull out all the stops to get this win. They had more on the line than Utep did.

So Props to Utep for pulling out the win.

Realm was wrong again... watch him eat CROW !!

Talk about it on the newest and pro-free speech UTEP board. txelpaso.proboards.com

[rj]

Im definitely sold now. We came out hot, naturally lost some fire in the 2nd half, but still held them off and gutted out the win. Very impressed. I would have never imagined wins at Memphis, UAB and Tulsa.

I also love the nastiness and swag of this team. They made a point of taking it to Jordan, and really made him look like a chump. You can hear the smack talking on CBS College Sports feed, it was awesome.

CTB said during the post game show he told Julyan to take it right to Jordan, I love that stuff, I dont even mind the new J-will (Jeremy) talking smack to the fans and the TU bench. It seems to fire the guys up, their D really tightened up down the stretch with Randy finishing them off with one of his patented dunks.

Ill be heading to Tulsa for the tourney, any idea how many other people will be on hand?

[Lowercase Ray]

Nice win at Tulsa. UTEP seemed to lose focus a bit in the 2nd half, but were able to hold-on. They've definitely improved on that aspect from the first part of the season.

I rather feel bad for Tulsa. As the hosting team for the CUSA tourney, they were having a great year; right up until their first loss to UTEP. Since then they've gone from being a team competing for the CUSA regular season title to a team that has dropped down to the #5 spot for CUSA tourney. Tulsa could take a financial beating in hosting this year's tourney. El Paso should keep this in mind, as they compete for next year's tourney. If next year's UTEP team has a great year, it could bring in much needed business; but if UTEP has a bad year then the city could take a beating hosting the tourney.

This win will help push UTEP's RPI into the 40s. They've got two more games (Marshall and UAB) in the regular season which can help better their resume. Marshall in particular is playing their best this season and will be a tuff game at their place. Beating UAB would give UTEP the best bang for the buck, as they are going to be the only team inside the RPI 50 that we'll beat in the regular season.

Even though the coming games against Marshall and UAB are UTEP's last opportunities to better their resume for the NCAA tourney, the most important games of the season are going to be Southern Miss and Rice. At this point in time a loss to either of these two teams would be a bad loss, and at this jucture of the season it is something no at-large team can have. The loss that would be CATASTROPHIC would be to Rice. No team that wants to get into the dance loses to an RPI 300 team on their home court. Luckily UTEP is playing too well to let something like that happen.

[UTEP87]

It goes down as a good win for UTEP. I'm happy they won. I'm sickened by how they fell apart in the second half.
The first half Utep played like a real top 25 school. Maybe top 15. Aggressive on offense, great defense and basically blowing Tulsa off their own court by halftime.
Had they been able to maintain their level of play in the second half, I'd come on board and declare them one of the best Utep teams ever.
Unfortunately Utep played the second half miserably.
They looked tired. They made a lot of reaching fouls, got beat down the court, took a number of quick shots and stood around on offense AND defense.
They didn't even look like an NIT team.
My questions to coach Barbee: What were your impressions of the game, especially the second half?; and What do you intend to do to fix it?

[Bill]

Tulsa & UTEP played before 5500+ fans - they can get ~9000 max attendance and could not fill it for a key match-up?! They are done. Memphis & UTEP are peaking at right time. Marshall @ home is dangerous, So. Miss can't hang with UTEP, Rice, well, is Rice, and UAB here is going to get whipped. Great win - on to the NCAA GO MINER$$$

[stahala]

I was reading some of the old posts, you know, the ones filled with "Fire Barbee now!" and "UTEP is going to the CBI" "Barbee cant Coach". Reading those now, I sounded so smart, and many of you were complete idiots. Ah, it feels good to be right. :)

[Pugapalooza]

Awesome and convincing win for the Miners. It's nice to see moultrie getting more and more comfortable playing with Caracter. Stone is keeping the offense flowing and scoring some on his own and can't say enough about Randy. I have to admit I was a little concerned with Stephon leaving if there was a go to guy and actually they have two of them with Randy and Derrick. I know the Miners have a little more work to do, but this is turning into one of those special seasons. Just wish
the Bear could be watching because he would applaud the way Barbee has the team playing overall but especially the defensive effort over
the last ten games.

[Prospero]

What excites me the most, is that it is VERY POSSIBLE to win the next four games. At Marshall will be the hardest game out of the four, but the MINERs have proved that they can beat anyone in our conference on the road.

[Al]

UTEP87 you are an idiot. Tulsa is a good team and for UTEP to even be ahead 20 points was too good to be true. Tulsa was going to fight back and they did. To win on the road is tough and to win even by 8 points is good. Remember UTEP has a 10 game win streak too. This team is NCAA quality.

[Lorenzo]

I think it's clear now what's behind this great Miner run especially on the road. Miners record in orange jerseys as opposed to blue: 6-1 by my count. The blue jerseys look sharper, but the basketball gods shine upon UTEP wearing the traditional orange...

That and UTEP is just straight up the most talented team in C-USA and has finally put all the pieces together.

[Axe Man]

Stahala

What about the Culpepper is a selfish player who jacks up too many 3's? Oh wait that the moderator of the blog...

Great game by my Miners. I'm seriously considering buying the tickets to the Houston regional in hopes of seeing my Miners playing here...

Axe Man

[Axe Man]

Lets playing the guessing game here.

Given that the polls are coming out tomorrow, what ranking will the Miners get? I say #24 but don't be surprise if they get a #23. What do you think?

Axe Man