conference

Earlier this month I wrote an article previewing the 2002-03 edition of the UTEP basketball team (collegehoopsnet.com/OTHER/MHAugust12th.htm). If you haven’t read it yet I would like to suggest that you skip it. Recent events have made reading it a pure waste of time.

Before last week there were already several problems surrounding the Miner basketball team. The 2001-02 Miners were expected to contend for a WAC championship and NCAA tournament berth. Instead they wound up setting the UTEP record for most losses in a season at 22, against only 10 wins, and finished 3-15 in the conference, dead last. Five seniors were leaving the team, each of whom started at least 9 games. Sophomore forward Nick Enzweiler, who started 16 games last season, announced that he was going to transfer. Assistant coach Silvey Dominguez, the team’s lead recruiter, decided to leave for a similar and higher paying position at Utah. There was one bright spot, however. The Miners had signed a very good recruiting class, one that recruiting expert Greg Swaim had ranked in the top 20 to 25 in the country. While I consider this a huge reach, there was no doubt that the Miners had recruited a quality class.

Things took a decided turn for the worse on Friday, Aug 23. The school announced that SG/SF Antone Jarrell, who would have been a junior this season, and PG Luke Martin, a sophomore, were going to transfer. Jarrell was a 20 game starter for the Miners, while Martin started 6 games for the team last season. These two were the only returning players w/ any experience in the backcourt. In addition, PG Keion Kindred, the team’s star recruit, announced that he was going to enroll at a JC, Yavapai College in Prescott, AZ, and reopen his recruitment. This was a crushing blow to the program.

What does this mean for head coach Jason Rabedeaux (Rab) and the team this season? Miner fans, who were expecting Kindred and the rest of the newcomers to help the veterans lead the team back to respectability this season, are now preparing for a season even worse than last year’s debacle. At Miner Digs (http://utep.rivals.com), which hosts the most active Miner message board on the Net (http://utep.rivals.com/forum.asp?sid=991&fid=509&style=1), fans are calling for Rab’s removal. Unfortunately Rab signed a contract extension after the end of a successful 2000-01 campaign, and buying him out of that contract may prove to be too much of a financial burden for the athletic department.

Below is an updated preseason preview, rewritten to reflect the departure of Jarrell, Martin and Kindred.

Frontcourt:

With the departure of Jarrell and Martin, there will be only two players on the team w/ any significant experience at the Div 1 level. Each was already a lock for a starting position even before the recent exodus. The first, 6-6 SR SF/PF Roy Smallwood, needs to finally step up and become the star of this team. Roy is the team’s leading returning scorer (12.4 ppg) and rebounder (6.3 rpg). He is strong and quick w/ a soft shooting touch, and has the ability to go for 20 night after night. Still, Miner fans have been disappointed with Roy’s play the last two seasons. Roy was the runaway pick for WAC Freshman-of-the-Year in 2000 after averaging 13.4 ppg and leading the WAC in three point shooting (45.9%). At the time Miner fans thought that Roy would easily become one of the best players ever at the school. He has yet to live up to his promise however, as his scoring averages and shooting percentages were lower as a sophomore and junior than they were as a freshman. He needs to reacquire the desire and intensity that he showed as freshman if this team is going to be successful.

The other sure fire starter is 6-8 SR C/PF Justino Victoriano. Justino is a big strong kid who had several impressive performances last season, including an 18 point performance in only 17 minutes of play against Fresno State, an 8-12 for 19 points performance against Tulsa, and an 9-10 for 19 points outing at Boise State. He also led the team w/ a .586 shooting percentage. Unfortunately, Justino has a penchant for committing fouls, which limited his playing time to 18.7 minutes per game, his scoring to 8.7 ppg and his rebounding to 5.4 rpg. If Justino can keep himself out of foul trouble he will easily score well into double figures and average about 8 or 9 rebounds per game. If not his performance will be a repeat of last year, where he is brilliant in some games and totally invisible due to foul trouble in others.

Antone Jarrell was expected to be a contender for the third starting frontcourt spot, but that will now go to one of two newcomers.

JC transfer Darius Mattear, a 6-6 PF, is one of the contenders for that starting position. Mattear is a high flying athlete who prefers rebounding to scoring, averaging 12.5 rpg and 14.3 ppg at Fort Scott (KS) Community College last season. He apparently uses his athleticism to score as he lacks a good post game and does not have a good shooting touch. For the team to be successful he really needs to work on his offensive skills. Hopefully his enthusiasm for rebounding will become contagious, as the Miners have been extremely poor in that department the last few seasons.

The other potential starter in the UTEP frontcourt is incoming freshman John Tofi, a 6-7 PF from Riordan HS in San Francisco. Tofi averaged 15 ppg and 10 rpg for Riordan this year, helping to lead them to the CA Div III title. He is powerfully built with a strong post game and good rebounding ability, but is not overly quick. Rab has named him as a potential starter, but Greg Hicks of Prep West Hoops does not believe that he will be ready to start until his junior season. All agree that he is a very nice addition to the team. Whether he is ready to contribute or not, Tofi will be thrown into fire, as there are only 9 scholarship players remaining on the team.

A pair of sophomore forwards, 6-7 Joe Devance and 6-6 Brandon Clausen, will be on the roster, but are not expected to see much playing time. Devance, and El Paso native, scored a total of 11 points in 11 games last season, while Clausen tallied 1 point in just and 3 minutes of play last year.

Backcourt:

Kindred was expected to start in the backcourt, and Martin was expected to compete for a starting position. Both players would have been part of an 8 or 9 man rotation. With both of these players gone, 6-1 JC transfer Chris Craig will man the starting PG spot. Craig, who played for Arizona Western last season, only averaged 7.7 ppg and 4.3 apg, making only 41% of his shots, 34 % from beyond the arc. Observers who have seen him play insist that he is much better than his numbers indicate. For the Miners’ sake they had better be correct.

Two more newcomers will compete for the starting SG position: Giovonni St Amant, an incoming freshman, and Jason Hammock, a sophomore transfer. Gio, a 6-3 SG, is very puzzling mystery. Some observers believe him to be a steal by the Miner coaching staff, while others consider him to be a huge reach for the program. His numbers and accolades seem to back up the opinions of his supporters. Gio averaged an impressive 25.8 ppg and 10.3 rpg for St Johns Bosco HS in Bellflower, CA, last season, and an even more impressive 33.4 ppg and 12.6 rpg during an amazing playoff run. In his final playoff game Gio nearly led his team to an upset of Southern CA basketball power Mater Dei before finally falling short late in the game. He also beat out more nationally renowned players such as Kindred and Bobby Jones to be named as the Long Beach Press-Telegram Dream Team Player-of-the-Year. Still, his critics insist that he does not have the outside shot to play the SG position in a conference like the WAC, and that he needs to significantly improve his ball handling. Without Kindred and Martin in the backcourt he will definitely get the chance to prove himself this season.

Hammock, a 6-6 SG, sat out last season after transferring from Illinois State. He averaged 2.6 ppg as a freshman at ISU and averaged 9.8 ppg and 5.3 rpg as a senior at The Colony (TX) HS. He is a lean, athletic slasher who really needed to work on his perimeter shooting. Hopefully he did this while sitting out last season. I originally did not expect much of a contribution from Hammock this year. With the recent turnover in the program, however, he might find himself w/ a starting position.

Another member of the UTEP backcourt that might benefit from the recent player departures is 6-3 RS FR SG Alexandros Anthis. I had high hopes for Anthis when he was signed as a 21-year-old freshman. He had averaged 15 ppg, 5 rpg, and 4 apg as a starter for the Greek National Team. In a couple of exhibition games and three early season games he played in before redshirting, however, he showed that he is in no way ready to contribute to a Div 1 basketball program. With such a thin backcourt, however, he will likely see some decent playing time this season.

The final member of the team is 5-8 PG Omar Duran, a transfer from Midland (TX) College. Duran, originally from El Paso, average 6.8 points and 2.5 assists per game last season, shooting 38 % from the field, 34 % from three-point range and 63 % from the line. Duran came on board after the departure of Jarrell, Martin, and Kindred. I believe that he will walk on to the team. Under normal circumstances a player like this would receive playing time only at the end of blowouts. However, w/ so little depth in the backcourt, he might see some minutes backing up Craig at PG.

Outlook:

Before the recent defections I was predicting that this team would win about 15 games. Now I believe that the team will win fewer games than they did last year. No one in the backcourt has any Div 1 experience. No one is a proven outside shooter. The team’s best player, Roy Smallwood, has not consistently shown the desire to play since his freshman season, and its second best player, Justino Victoriano, is foul prone. There are only 9 scholarship players on the team (Clausen and Duran are walk-ons), and it appears that two of those players, Joe Devance and Alex Anthis, are not Div 1 caliber players.

In order for this team to be better than it was last season a number of things have to take place. Smallwood, who needed to step up no matter what, now needs to average over 20 points and 6 rebounds per game, consistently playing like a star each and every game. Victoriano needs to stay out of foul trouble and hit the boards hard, averaging at least 8 rebounds per game. St Amant and Tofi need to prove that they can contribute as freshmen, and contribute big. Craig and Hammock need to show that they are much better than their stats indicate. Mattear needs to produce offensively, and we need something, anything from Devance and Anthis. While some of these things may happen, it will not likely be enough to improve on our 10 win season of a year ago. Things look really bleak for the UTEP basketball team.

The problems w/ the team fall on Rab, and he needs to be replaced. There have been several off the court problems w/ the team during his tenure. Silvey Dominguez’s departure marked the third time in Rab’s three years that he lost an assistant coach. He’s now had three players quit the team, and a fourth who has decided not to honor his letter of intent. On the court, Rab’s teams have been extremely poor at rebounding, often giving up 20 or more offensive rebounds in a game. The defensive effort has been inconsistent, and, last season, the Miners couldn’t score. Rab does have the support of AD Bob Stull, and his contract extension makes it difficult to fire him. Still, if he has the type of season that everyone expects, Stull will have no recourse but to let him go. I do wish Rab and the team luck this season, as I would love for them to prove me wrong, but I just don’t see how this team can be successful.

Go Miners!!!!


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