El Paso is always showing up on one list or another. It is second on the list of safest large cities in the United States. Once, if I remember right, it had the top spot on the list of sweatiest cities. I don’t have any data to back this up, but I would bet that El Paso might be the most hungover city in the country, today. You can bet your autographed copy of Glory Road that Miners fans were celebrating long into the night. Yesterday, The Bears’ most successful protege, Tim Floyd, came home to El Paso to become the Head Coach of the UTEP Miners basketball team.
In order to understand this, you have to understand that Don Haskins was much more that the basketball coach at the college in El Paso. El Paso is stuck out in the middle of nowhere. It is on the border of Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico. About the only people who claim El Paso are the people who live here, and many of those are just waiting to make their escape. El Paso is Texas’ redheaded stepchild. El Paso, and her citizens, like stepchildren, have a tendency to suffer from an inferiority complex. Don Haskins, and UTEP basketball was, and is, El Paso. Don Haskins, like the people of El Paso, was all about hard work, character, straight shooting, and reaching the top, irregardless of race or ethnicity. Don Haskins showed elites in basketball, and all walks of life, that greatness wasn’t only for the chosen few. Greatness was there for anyone willing to do the work necessary to achieve it. Others might have all of the advantages, but those advantages could be overcome by hard work, determination, and desire. Don Haskins, and his teams, represented the greatness of America. And he did it in a city of immigrants. Immigrants who could understand and appreciate that perhaps more than any other city in the country. So filling his shoes was an impossible task for a mere basketball coach. Even if the coach won a National Championship, , it might be a great accomplishment, but it wouldn’t be an historic one.
After UTEP’s legendary, Hall of Fame coach Don Haskins retired, the search for a suitable replacement began. The first, Jason Rabedeaux, was put in the impossible position. He is an almost forgotten man, left in the darkness of the shadow cast by the giant, Don Haskins. Then, two coaches, talented imitators of Don Haskins, came and went. Impersonators like Rich Little, and Frank Caliendo are fun to watch, but like Foakleys, they aren’t the real thing They imitate greatness, but they aren’t greatness themselves. Then, in an attempt to move away from imitations of greatness, Coach Barbee brought in a whole new style. He made it clear that there would be a change. No more living in the past. The future was here, now. It was a change, and it was successful on the basketball court. But it isn’t just about basketball, and winning. It didn’t represent El Paso, the people, or the ideals that Don Haskins represents.
But, that is gone. Tim Floyd is here, now. El Pasoans know that he gets it. This is how he was raised. This is how he was taught by The Bear, the one who wrote the book. Tim Floyd still won’t be The Bear. But, he is as close as it gets.
Archive for March, 2010
The Day After the Night Before | 31 Mar 10
There Was a Coronation Today. Some Highlights | 30 Mar 10
Coach Haskins's assistant coach Tim Floyd takes the reins of the UTEP basketball program.
The King’s son, our Prince Tim has come home, and has taken the throne. It was a spectacularly beautiful day in El Paso. The weather was great, too. There was a special kind of excitement, and energy in the Foster-Stevens Basketball Complex. There was an electricity that was somehow infused with a degree of reverence. It was like The Bear himself was in the room. So while there may have been a celebration going on, it was conducted with an air of reserve and dignity. The Bear wasn’t there physically, but he was there in so many other ways.His wife, Mary was there, and it was like she was welcoming her son home. I really have no way to describe the mood of Coach Floyd, the ex-players, Dr. Natalicio, Mary Haskins, or the fans in attendance.
Our special basketball program, made special by Coach Haskins, has just gotten very special again today with the return of one who knows just how special the program is, and you don’t have to wonder if he is just blowing smoke when he speaks with reverence for UTEP basketball, and his commitment to returning it to its rightful place in the future.
UTEP\’s Tim Floyd Press Conference Highlights
There Is Change In the Air | 28 Mar 10
It’s been gloomy, stormy, cloudy, unpredictable, and changing, the last couple of weeks in El Paso. Not the weather. I’m talking about UTEP basketball. The Miner’s early exit in the first round of the NCAA Tournament left UTEP fans feeling gloomy. The fan’s explanations for it were pretty stormy. Coach Barbee’s replacement is still cloudy, and with AD Bob Stull playing it close to the vest, completely unpredictable, at this time. One thing for sure, is that the head coach of UTEP’s basketball team is changing.
Springtime in El Paso always means the temperatures are rising, and the wind is blowing. In addition to the sand and dust in the air, now there are footballs in the air. Spring Football has begun. Coach Price has his bull horn, and his new Defensive Coordinator with him out on Glory Road Field. After a couple of practices I can tell you this, the defensive backs coaches don’t need bull horns to be heard. They are what I would call “old school”.
Trevor Vittatoe, UTEP’s starting quarterback for the past three years, has not practiced, due to disciplinary reasons. But, for now, Tim Curry and Carson Meger are making the most of their opportunities to takes snaps from center. These two are fun to watch, as they are as different as can be. Curry is a prototypical Mike Price quarterback. He is six feet four inches tall, and weighs two hundred and ten pounds. He has a strong arm, a quick release, and is very fundamentally sound. Give him a pocket, and he will pick an opposing team’s defense apart. Carson Meger is listed at six feet tall, and one hundred ninety pounds. When he gets under center, he is under center. Words like scrappy, resourceful, and elusive come to mind. He is accurate, moves easily behind his line, and has an uncanny knack for knowing when to tuck the ball in and take off with it. I’m not saying he is the second coming of Fran Tarkington. But, he makes the most of his physical tools, and great instincts.
Jeff Moturi is no longer catching passes for the Miners, but Coach Price always has a tremendous stable of talented receivers ready to rotate into his high-powered pass oriented offense. There will be the core group of receivers that Miners fans will recognize, such as Kris Adams, Pierce Hunter, Evan Davis, Donavan Kemp, and Russ Carr. Last year, I mentioned a couple of local kidswho really stood out, at least to my admittedly untrained eyes. Well, Julio Lopez and Jeken Frye have picked up where they left off. Lopez has excellent hands, and seems to grab any ball thrown close to him. Frye just seems to find a way to get behind everyone on defense two or three times each practice for a long bomb, which he invariably takes into the end zone. While I’m mentioning receivers, let me add Lavorick Williams to those to keep an eye on. He is a transfer from NMSU, with three years of eligibility left. He has blazing speed. As a senior at Permian HS, he ran a 10.2 second hundred meters. I was told he has run the 100 meters in 10.2 seconds. Those three are sophomores, but expect them to start making their presence felt.
DBuck looks like the great back he is. But, Jason Williams is looking very good, and a transfer who sat out last year, Joe Banyard, has also looked very, very good. I thought he was more of a power back, last year. But, I have seen that he also has serious speed.
It is too early to take too much from the two practices I have watched, and as usual, there are a number of players out, rehabbing injuries. There are a lot of players we got to see some of last year that we will see much more of this season. As always, there are many battles taking place to replace those seniors who have moved on. This evening, the players put on the pads, and once the “smackin’” and “crackin’”gets started there is a separation of the men from the boys. I think the defense is chomping at the bit to show that they are a big change from what we have seen in the past few years. I love it! The weather is warming up, and so are the UTEP football players.
Basketball On the Border | 27 Mar 10
For forty-some years, you could spot a Bear in El Paso, if you looked in the right spots. He roamed the hardwoods just north and east of the Rio Grande, where the river drops into the valley below, dividing the city of El Paso from Ciudad Juarez. The years on the calendars changed, but the basketball remained a constant. The head coach would be Don Haskins, and the basketball would have his stamp on it.
It was based on a couple of very simple principles. First, his team would run the opponent until they could run no more. When the opponent could no longer keep up, his players got uncontested layups. You don’t need to be highly skilled to do this. Running is very simple, and layups are very easy to make. So, very simply, the team that could run when the other team could no longer run, would be in excellent position to win. Preparation was just as simple. Run. Run until his players feet bled, and run some more. Eventually the feet stopped bleeding. Once running was mastered, defense came next. It was kind of like more running. It was his players learning to move their feet. Defense is played with the feet. You move the feet enough to stay between the player being guarded, and the basket. Simple so far, right? Running, moving feet, running, moving feet. Offense was based on, you guessed it, running. Players ran, forcing their players guarding them to run, and passed the ball to players running, forcing defenses to run for most of the 35 seconds before the shot clock ran down, and then finding the open man for an easy shot. Almost as important as making the shot, was making the opposing players run, and run, and run. Sometimes, teams might be in pretty good shape, and could keep up the running for a good portion of the game. But, much more often than not, by the middle of the second half of the game they began to get pained expressions on their faces that told of the pain of burning lungs, aching sides, leaden legs, and perhaps worst of all, the pain of a bruised and beaten will, with a little extra pain of humiliation knowing that they were being beat by something as simple as running. Basketball skills weren’t doing them in. They were being destroyed by something as unskilled as running, moving, feet.
Then, there came a time when Coach Haskins, slowed by age, and failing health, was forced to take his seat in the tunnel, behind the basket at the south end of the 12000 seat arena bearing his name. He turned over his hardwoods to a younger generation. First came Jason Rabedeaux. He understood The Bear’s simple principles of the game, but was distracted by other creatures in the woods, and after a short time, moved on. Then came Billy Clyde Gillespie. In many ways it seemed like The Bear had returned. He knew how to make players feet bleed, and understood why that was a good thing. But, unlike The Bear, Billy Clyde longed for a bigger forrest and he too went away. Next came Doc Sadler. He too, understood The Bear’s game of basketball. But, he seemed somehow out of place in El Paso, and found a place he felt that was much more to his liking. “It’s Nebraska!”, he explained. Oddly enough, that seemed to make perfect sense to all parties concerned. Then, a Tiger, Tony Barbee came to El Paso. He brought a different way of playing the game. There was still a lot of running, but it didn’t have the same purpose. It wasn’t to wear the opponent down. It was just to get clear of the defensive player. Shots were put up, and they didn’t have to go in the first time, as there would be team members leaping for the rebound, to put it in . So, Coach Barbee added leaping to running. He used height and athleticism to overwhelm opponents. Fans, used to The Bear’s style of wearing down an opponent, had trouble warming up to this new style of physically overwhelming an opponent. It was exciting, but it seemed to lack The Bear’s structured simplicity. It lacked that beauty of slowly ginding an opponent into silent, painful, submission. For El Paso fans watching the Tony Barbee coached teams was kind of like Bobby Fuller Five fans going to a Dizzy Gillespie jam session. Well, the Tiger, never really comfortable here in the desert, has found a new home.
Now, the UTEP fans wait anxiously to see who will be the team’s next coach. Most, seem ready to return to The Bear’s style of basketball. It just so happens that there are two coaches, both almost perfect fits, available right now. Tim Floyd was practically raised by The Bear, in coaching terms, and Billy Clyde Gillespie has shown that he could also bring that kind of basketball back to The Don. Two Prodigal Sons. Will one return? We should find out very soon.
The Bulldogs Bit the Miners In the Butt | 21 Mar 10
Well, it’s been a few days since the Miners lost their NCAA Tournament first round game to a very good Butler team. Watching UTEP play so well, and take a nice lead into the locker room at halftime, led me to believe that we really were going to not only win the game but, maybe, just maybe, go deep into the Tournament. The second half was an entirely different story. The Bulldogs couldn’t miss, and the Miners couldn’t hit.
Some UTEP fans seemed only to have seen the second half. Explanations for the loss ranged far and wide. Our team was overconfident. Our team has no heart. Our team has dissent amongst them. Our coach was unable to make adjustments. My favorite, our team quit out of anger and to spite our coach for telling them he is leaving.
I’m no expert, and I don’t have any “insider” information but, from what I saw our team wasn’t so overconfident that they couldn’t build a lead going into the half. I didn’t see them quit. Our coach was capable of putting together a game plan that gave us the lead at the half. Our strength all season had been our tenacious man to man defense. When they started hitting shots we went to a zone to force them to hit from the outside, and they lit up the scoreboard like I used to light up Rack-A-Ball, my favorite pinball machine. So we went back to man to man. Ding, ding, ding. They continued to rack up the made shots. And I guess Coach Barbee must have told them about leaving at halftime, in the middle of the game. That must have been when they got angry and spiteful. They didn’t seem angry with him for the first twenty minutes.
What I saw was our team doing what we wanted to do, and what, to my thinking, what Butler was willing to allow us to do. We fed the ball into Derrick Caracter, which is just what we wanted to do. Butler seemed willing to allow that in order to keep their men between our other players and the hoop. They kept our players outside trying to hit well defended jump shots, and put themselves in position to rebound their defensive boards. Caracter had a big game. Randy Culpepper got his points, but they were hard fought, and few of them came from beyond the arc. UTEP had a tough time hitting their shots. Give Butler credit for their defense, as that had much to do with it, and some of it was just one of those days when the shots aren’t falling. Remember how The Bear preached defense for that very reason. Sometimes your shots don’t fall, but defense should always be there. He knew, that sometimes the shot gods aren’t smiling on you.
Butler, on the other hand, keeping themselves between their men they were guarding and the paint, forced Moultrie and Williams outside. From there, with good defense, they weren’t able to score, or rebound. They almost seemed to disappear. Polk is streaky and wasn’t hitting, and they weren’t allowing extra shots for him to break out of it with, and Stone can shoot from the outside all day long without doing any serious damage. So Caracter could do his damage, Randy could fight his way to some damage, and that left it a two player team versus a five player team, offensively. No contest.
Offensively, Butler had one of those days when they just couldn’t miss. Part of that was due to very sharp, crisp, ball movement, which gave them open shots, and also caused problems for our switching man to man defense, and that too caused open shots. On this day, any open shot for a Butler player was a made shot. It was one of those days when the shot gods were smiling on them. Late in the game, the Butler ball movement, their ability to hit shots, and the shot gods obviously favoring Butler, I believe began taking its toll on the Miners team. Fatigue, dispair, and the inevitability of the loss quenched some of the team’s fire. I don’t think they quit, but I don’t think they played with the same intensity they would have if the game was tied, either.
The bottom line is that Butler is a very talented, well coached team, experienced in NCAA Tournament play, and they also had one of those special days when the shot gods smiled on them. The UTEP team, although talented, and well coached, lacked that experience of playing in the NCAA Tournament ran into Butler. The result was a loss that left the Butler fans smiling, and feeling validated, and Miners fans sick, frustrated, and questioning why the game turned out the way it did. The future may answer some of those questions, but like many of the fans of teams that lost their games, why will be what we ask for years to come.
UTEP V Butler By the Numbers | 16 Mar 10
I was pretty happy when it was announced that UTEP was going to the NCAA Tournament. My first thought when I saw our match up in the first round was, I like it. Butler wasn’t some giant that we would have to face. But, the fact is, they are a giant killer. Butler is used to going to the Big Dance, and doing more than just being the foil for some BCS school. The Butler Bulldogs have the nation’s longest current winning streak, at 20, and are the #8 ranked team in the country. I won’t go into the Selection Committee’s pitting of two Top Twenty-five Ranked teams, both Mid-Majors against each other in a first round game, or the fact that one of the top twenty-five teams in the country barely made it into the tournament, other than to say that has a very distinctive odor, the smell of bull scat and rotting fish combined.
But I felt better about it, as almost all of the prognosticators tabbed us as a possible/probable team to provide one of those almost annual 5/12 seed upsets. Our size and athleticism gives us the edge, they said. Plus, and I added this myself, we have great depth.
Then I started taking a closer look at Butler’steam.What I saw looked a lot like UTEP. We may go about playing the game in different ways but, we sure seem to end up with some similar results. So I am going to give you some numbers, side by side to look at. That way you can interpret them as you see them.
| Butler/Opponent UTEP/Opponent
PPG/PPG Allowed 70.1/60.0 75.8/64.2 3 Pt Made-Attempts 216-632/160-518 197-568/183-596 RPG 32.8/29.2 36.3/35.6 Assists PG 12.8/10.5 14.8/11.4 Turnovers 12.4/13.7 13.2/15.9 Steals 6.8/5.2 8.8/5.8 Blocks 2.5/3.1 3.7/2.4 |
Now let’s take a look at the players, and minutes per game.
| S. Mack G 6’3″ 31 R. Culpepper G 6′ 33 G. Hayward G/F 6’9″ 33 D. Caracter F 6’9″ 26 M. Howard F 6’8″ 26 A. Moultrie F 6’11″ 29 W. Veasley G/F 6’3″ 31 J. Williams F 6’7″ 24 R. Nored G 6′ 29 J. Stone G 6’6″ 31 Z. Hahn G 6’1″ 16 C. Polk 6’3″ 25 |
Player Stats
| Butler Name PPG 3pt FG% RPG Assists TO Blks Stls Hayward 15.4 .295 8.5 56 72 26 34 Mack 13.9 .372 3.5 98 68 5 41 Howard 12.3 .273 5.4 28 54 22 20 Veasley 10.3 .370 4.3 31 60 9 34 Nored 5.9 .171 2.8 116 60 4 51 Hahn 5.3 .434 1.0 24 18 0 11 UTEP |
The Bulldogs have a starting five who are all capable of putting up points in double figures. The Miners won’t be able to leave any of them alone to go double team another player like they did with Tulsa, for instance. They are well balanced, and will hit open jump shots, or drive to the hoop, and kick it out if needed. They play smart basketball, and if they lack size or athleticism, they make up for it with solid play, and the ability to find the open man who can make the shot. These guys are good. Real good.
I do believe that UTEP plays a tougher conference schedule, and that the level of the defense played in C-USA is more intense. I believe that may be where the Miners will give them a little more problems than they are used to. But, mistakes in defense are taken advantage of. So the UTEP defense will need to be intense, but mistake free. Butler plays smart defensive ball, too. They will have to be pressured by the offense of the Miners, especially in the paint. The Miners won’t be successful trying to lay back and attack from the outside.
I was hoping to find some evidence of where we would have an obvious advantage. I didn’t find that. It looks like two Top Twenty-five teams will settle this one on the hardwood. That’s right where it should be settled. It should be a terrific game. It seems to me that this game will be decided by which team is able to impose their will over the other team. The Miners had better bring the best they have, because you can bet the farm that Butler will. If the Miners bring their best game, I think they could be in for an even match for the first 30 minutes of the game, before finally getting some breathing room at the end.
Final score, UTEP 73, Butler 67.
Winning Streaks | 15 Mar 10
Okay, you’ve lost one game. You can go out there and win five more and win the whole thing.-Coach Don Haskins 5 March, 1966
This is what The Bear told his dejected team in their locker room following their loss to the Seattle Chieftans, ending the Miners’ 23 game winning streak. The Miners began another winning streak the very next day. The fifth game of that winning streak resulted in a historic National Championship for the Miners from Texas Western College.
On March 13, 2010 the University of Houston ended the Miners’ 16 game winning streak, winning the Conference USA Tournament Championship. The last team to beat the Miners was the University of Houston Cougars, two months earlier to the day.
Winning streaks always come to an end. That’s why they are called streaks. They don’t necessarily have to be long streaks to be memorable. Houston had lost to a 3 and 13 Tulane team to end their regular season. But, Houston beat ECU to begin a four game winning streak which would bring them the C-USA Tournament Championship and more importantly, a trip to the NCAA Tournament, where they will have the opportunity to extend their winning streak.
Winning streaks build confidence, pride, and momentum. But, very often they can also build pressure. It can cause a team to “tighten up”. You want your team to be focused but, you also want them to stay “loose”.
So, Houston’s four game winning streak ended UTEP’s 16 game winning streak. By doing so, the Cougars made C-USA a two bid league, instead of a one bid league, which it would have been had UTEP won the game. Conference USA now has doubled its opportunities to post wins in the NCAA Tournament. The conference has twice the potential for bring NCAA Tournament money back to C_USA.A few wins each by Houston and UTEP would go a long way toward garnering some respect for the conference, which has been considered to be weak ever since the conference debuted its current membership, in 2005.
One last thing about streaks. UTEP had its winning streak ended in the Championship game of the Conference USA Tournament. UTEP’s opponent in the first round of the NCAA Tournament is Butler University. It just so happens that the Butler Bulldogs are riding a 20 game winning streak into this game. One team will be trying to add another game to their winning streak. One team will be trying to start a new winning streak. One team will be going home. One of the teams will be trying to add to their winning streak two days later. It’s all about the streak, at this point and time.
C-USA Quarterfinals Part 1 11 Mar 10
The first day of the Conference USA Tournament is in the books, and there weren’t any surprises. The higher seeded teams moved on to play again, in Thursday’s contests. Here are the matchups for the Quarterfinals.
Memphis will play Houston. This one should be fun to watch. During the regular season, the two teams met twice and each came away with a win. Memphis won decisively at Memphis, 92-77. But, when they met in Houston, the Cougars turned the tables and beat the Tigers 92-75. So each team is capable of beating the other, handily. It pretty much depends on which Houston team shows up, as they have been inconsistent this season. On the offensive side, the two teams are about even. But, Memphis plays defense, and Houston just tries to outscore their opponents. The Bear always preached that on some nights the shots just don’t go in. But, defense should be a constant. Memphis will have the fresh legs, and the stronger motivation to come away with the victory. Memphis 83, Houston 75
UAB and Southern Miss will go to war. For those of us who learned to love watching great defense, this should be a real treat. These two teams duked it out twice this season. Neither team reached 60 points, and UAB won the two games by a total of 6 points. The Golden Eagles may have the best chance of pulling an upset in the Quarterfinals. Throw out the records. These teams are much closer than the records would lead one to believe. I think UAB’s loss to UTEP in the final seconds of the final regular season game, may have taken just a little fight out of the Blazers. It may be just enough to prove to be the difference, this time. Southern Miss 63, UAB 60.
The Shootout At the BOK Center-Day One | 09 Mar 10
The C-USA Shooting Gallery
The Conference USA Tournament gets started on Wednesday. UTEP, Memphis, UAB, and Marshall will be in the stands, waiting to see who survives the opening day’s shootout, and who will be gunning for them on Thursday.
The Houston team will duel with ECU’s Pirates. Houston is a real head scratcher. They can be lightning quick on the draw, or they can just as easily shoot themselves in the foot. They were the only team in C-USA to notch a win against UTEP and they beat Memphis soundly, 92 to 75. But, they were shot down twice by UCF, and even Tulane took them out.
The Pirates will do the best they can with their flintlocks. They Shanghaied Tulane twice, and split with UCF. The Knights fell to the Pirates broadsides in one battle. But, the Pirates’ cutlasses were no match against the Knights broadswords in their other meeting. Oh yeah, the Pirates shot a roosting Owl out of a tree.
Houston averages 78.7 ppg and gives up 75. ECU averages 66.7 ppg and allows 74.3. Here is the key to the game, though. Houston averages only 9.4 turnovers a game, while forcing 17.5. Guess what? ECU turns the ball over on average, 16.8 times a gave. The Pirates bring a knife to a gun fight. Houston 80, ECU 65. Southern Miss faces the challenge of the Green Wave of Tulane. The Eagles are a street gang, packing sawed-off shotguns. They bullied the lower half of the conference’s teams, and when they ran into the teams in the upper half, those teams barely escaped with their lives.
The Green Wave are the neighborhood kids. They will be carrying their Super Soakers. They want to play. They don’t mean anyone any harm (well, they did beat up on Rice a couple of times, but everyone picked on Rice).
This will be The Crips Meet the Little Rascals. It’s going to be ugly. It’s just not right. Southern Miss 70, Tulane 60.
Rice, armed with their pea shooters, will try to defend themselves against the Golden Hurricane of Tulsa. Shoot, Tulsa doesn’t even need to bring a weapon. When the 120 mph winds die down, the Owls will find that they have been plucked. Wisely, they will take the opportunity provided by the calm weather to fly south, back to their nest in Houston. This match up is sick. Anyone who would watch this game would enjoy watching puppies being fed to alligators. Oh yeah, this game is being played in Tulsa. The BOK Center will be packed. Tulsa has had a rough stretch lately, and this is just the kind of massacre they need to salve their wounded egos. Tulsa 75, Rice 60.
The SMU Mustangs will face UCF’s Golden Knights in what should be the best match of the day. The Mustangs are 7 and 9 but, they must have pissed off the schedule makers. In the nine games they lost, they lost to UTEP twice, Tulsa twice, UAB, Marshall, Memphis, Houston, and Southern Miss. SMU likes to play in slow motion. They like to force their opponents into a duel with single shot muzzle loaders, when their opponents are used to firing assault rifles.
The Knights are ADD ADHD. They have talent, but have a tough time with control and focus. They like the machine guns. They have the fire power, but sometimes they just can’t control the muzzle rise, and get off target.
This game is like Quaaludes versus Bennies. Bloodhounds versus greyhounds. SMU did win their match up earlier this season, so I will go with what we know. SMU 68, UCF 63.
We’ll see how this looks, once the smoke has cleared. Then, we can reload and get ready for the real Gunslingers. Here’s to tight groups in the black spot in the middle.
A Wild Ride | 07 Mar 10
When I was a kid, one of the amusement parks (I don’t remember if it was Playland in San Francisco, or the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz) had a ride called the Wild Mouse. Santa Cruz’s boardwalk had, at the time, one of the great wooden roller coasters in the world. It is still there. I rode it again this last summer, and it is still a very fun and exciting ride.
But, the Wild Mouse was different. Instead of a forty seat ‘train’ of heavy cars all connected together like some rolling centipede, like the rollaer coaster, the Wild Mouse was basically a couple of seats in a little bucket on wheels. It was suspended about a hundred feet above the ocean cliffs. As soon as it began moving it was clear that its appearance of dilapidation, and potential catastrophic failure was no illusion. You could feel all of the loosened bolts that were supposed to hold it together, all of the gaps in the uneven sections of track, and the huge amount of slack between the wheels holding the car on the track brought about by the years of tremendous forces having taken their toll. Within the first fifty feet of the ride you were convinced that you had made a terrible mistake, and you were now in danger of losing your life. About that time, you realized that the track ahead was about to take a 90 degree turn, and your bucket was travelling way too fast. It slammed into the turn, the car tilting a good three or four inches off of the track, with enough force to practically throw you out of the car to your death on the surf-foamed rocks a hundred feet below. That kind of risk to life and limb continued, time after time, until the car thankfully came to a halt, back where it had begun. Shaken, happy to be alive, and in need of a change of underwear, you jumped out and made a mad dash for the end of the line to take your next ride on the Wild Mouse.
Some basketball teams are like the roller coaster. They take you way up, and then plummet into valleys making turns with great speed. They are fun and exciting. But there is always the comfort of knowing that everything is under control.
But, the Miners season has been like riding the Wild Mouse. With every game, our NCAA Tournament lives have been on the line. The games have taken us to the high of handing the Aggies their worst beatdown in their history at the Pan Am Center, to the depression of them coming to El Paso to beat the hell out of us. Back up we go to the big leads over ranked teams only to watch those games slip away. The Penders lead Houston team, and it is hard to say which is disliked more, Penders or his team, handed us our only loss in conference play, taking us to a real low point in the ride. An overtime game in Alabama took us right to the edge. We rode to the top with a win over Memphis, and rolled past UCF at breakneck speed. Over, and over, this team has scared the you know what out of us, made us think they might be coming apart to dash us on the rocks. But, somehow, someway, the team has always held together, leaving us breathless, and grinning from ear to ear. The final game of the year was a fitting end to the regular season ride. One last, great, thrill before the end.
It’s time to run for the line again. The Wild Mouse leaves the platform again next Thursday at 8 pm MST, at the BOK Center in Tulsa. Make sure that you have your seat belt cinched down real tight. It’s always one hell of a thrill ride.