Barbee to Depaul

Is that whenever the Miners start to turn the corner, the financial realities of the university make it near impossible to keep a successful basketball coach. I believed it when he was mentioned for the UMass job, but I’m not so sure I buy DePaul. It may be in Chicago, but that is a massive rebuilding project. If Barbee leaves, I see it being to a team that will have a better chance at becoming a national player. Doc Sadler took the first job he could get, and now he’s on the hot seat up in Lincoln where basketball is never going to be a marquee sport.

DePaul isn’t really a “Grade A” program. Not only would it be a massive rebuilding project, but you would be competing at the bottom of the massive big east. I think Tony would rather stay at UTEP another year, do well, and solidify his resume, so that a bigger better program comes calling.

It wouldn’t make sense for Barbee to go to a Big East bottom-feeder in DePaul that has no fan base. I think Barbee would be better served to stay at UTEP one more, remember this team has NO SENIORS.

Barbee will probably get a decent pay raise this offseason. By waiting another year, some better jobs may open up, possibly in the SEC, where Barbee can utilize his strong recruiting ties to Memphis.

I didn’t think the coaching speculation would start until the conference tournaments were over. Wow, we should follow the DePaul lead, but my initial reaction is to agree with the above posters. Hopefully, if Barbee moves on he will have the business savvy to go to a place where he can actually win. In the Big 12, he could theoretically build a good team quickly (See Billy G and Drew at Baylor). The same can be said in the SEC. At DePaul, in the Big East, with so many other teams poaching talent from his backyard, and with so many established powers so far head, I just can’t see it being a place where he would want to go right now.

Obviously, money talks.

It tough to be a Miner fan sometimes especially when things are going so well. It is almost a given that when we have a couple of successful seasons (primarily Basketball) we know our coach at the time will be on the outs but that is the reality when the school can only pay 230,000 a year. Not sure what Sadler is getting paid but it has to be at least double and we all know Gillespie was well compensated at A&M and then the huge pay raise to go to Kentucky. Most people in
El Paso don’t realize how lucky we were to have Coach Haskins because he was winning consistently from the late 60’s to the
early 90’s before Recruiting slowed down for the Bear. Unfortunately, we have to accept the fact we are going to have a lot of mediocre seasons coupled with some successful seasons sprinkled in as the coaching carousel goes round and round. So it could be both a curse and a blessing if UTEP goes deep in tournament becuase Coach Barbee has maybe one more season as the Miners coach. But one thing I have learned being a Miner fan is enjoy the ride and I am sure doing that this year. Go MINERS!

to go to the bottom dwellers of the big east and to compete for recuits in Big 10 territory. Going to Depaul would be bad, they have no talent right now, 0-18 and 1-17 in the big east the last two years. It would take him years to even get that program to the middle of the pack in the Big East. I can see him staying another year and only leaving for UMASS or a better team in one of the Big 6 conferences.