Miner Rush - All Posts

Sources: Chris Washburn Not Involved in Bar Scuffle

2013-05-14T23:03:54Z

As was first reported by KVIA's Asher Wildman, UTEP freshman forward Chris Washburn Jr. was recently named in an El Paso Police Department complaint report filed Saturday night after an altercation that took place at the Palomino Tavern located in the Cincinnati Entertainment District.

According to the report, Eric Nunez, a security guard at the Palomino, was struck in the head during an altercation and suffered a minor injury because of the blow. Washburn and "two other unidentified black males" were accused, however neither Nunez nor witnesses could identify who actually committed the assault.

Since the incident, rumors have been flying that go as far as to say that Washburn hit the security guard in the head with a bottle, but sources close to the situation have expressed that isn't the case. Those sources state that while Washburn was at the establishment, he was not involved in the altercation.

The complete details of the situation are still unclear, but at this point Washburn has not been charged or arrested, and it is not expected that he will be. We'll continue to monitor the situation as it develops so stay tuned to MinerRush for more information as it becomes available.

2013 Battle For Atlantis Field Set

2013-05-02T23:19:11Z

The tournament, to be played November 28-30 2013, will take place on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and will feature the likes of Kansas, Iowa, Tennessee, UTEP, USC, Villanova, Wake Forest, and Xavier.

As was first reported by CBS' Jeff Goodman hours ago, Iowa becomes the final participant, rounding out a loaded 8 team field.

Battle 4 Atlantis field down in the Bahamas is: Kansas, Tennessee, Villanova, Xavier, Iowa, Wake, UTEP and USC.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanCBS) May 2, 2013

The Hawkeyes had previously committed to playing in the Great Alaska Shootout, but bailed when presented with the opportunity to play at Atlantis, seemingly in an effort to strengthen a non-conference SOS that potentially kept them out of the NCAA tournament this past season.

The pairings for the tournament have still not been released, but as was first reported by MinerRush on our Twitter account earlier this week, the Miners will play Georgetown, Cincinnati, and USC in the upcoming season; leaving much speculation that UTEP and USC could be paired together in the opening round in the Bahamas.

Regardless of who the Miners end up being paired with, this field will provide some great matchups, and some great experience for a maturing UTEP basketball team. And again, much like this past season, next year's schedule is shaping up to be another one of the best we've ever seen.

Make sure to stay tuned to MinerRush and our Twitter account @sbnminerrush, as we'll continue to bring you information on UTEP basketball, and all things UTEP sports as the information becomes available to us.

Scott Stoker is UTEP's New Defensive Coordinator

2013-04-19T23:18:26Z

Over the last day and a half, there has been much speculation that Sam Houston State defensive coordinator Scott Stoker was the leading candidate to replace the departed Jeff Choate as the defensive play caller for the Miners. Now, we know that will be the case.

It was first reported by Pete Roussel of www.coachingsearch.com yesterday morning, and was confirmed by MinerRush that Stoker was the leading the candidate for the job, and now we can say with certainty that he will be the new defensive coordinator for the Miners.

Sources within the program have confirmed that he has been offered, and has accepted the position. At this point, no contracts have been finalized, but that should happen in the very near future, and an official announcement from the university should come a short time after that.

Stoker comes in with a great resume, and a great deal of experience that includes a seven year head coaching stint, as well as a handful of years as a coordinator on both sides of the ball. He is also known as a solid recruiter and should fit right in here in El Paso. Stay tuned for more information, and an official announcement in the coming days.

UTEP Looking at Sam Houston Assistant Stoker to Replace Choate

2013-04-19T18:36:38Z

As was first reported yesterday by Pete Roussel of www.coachingsearch.com, UTEP's top target to take over the defensive coordinator duties is current Sam Houston State DC and linebackers coach Scott Stoker. That has been confirmed by MinerRush.

In his time with the Bearkats, Stoker has had quite a successful run, making his defense tops in the Southland Conference in back to back years, and also helping his team to FCS national title game appearances in each of those campaigns.

Stoker was named the Football Championship Subdivision "defensive coordinator of the year" by footballscoop.com following his unit's performance in 2012, and the coach also has proved to be a great recruiter in Texas and Louisiana.

Prior to taking the defensive reigns at Sam Houston State, Stoker was an assistant on both sides of the ball at McNeese State (1994-2002), and also spent seven years as the head coach at Northwestern State, compiling a 43-38 record.

Stoker seems to be a great candidate for the job, perhaps an even better one than Choate was. Of course, we'll never get to know how good of a defensive mind Choate actually was, but its nice to get a guy with a quality resume like that of Stoker.

As of this morning, no deal is in place, but it does seem like Stoker is the top candidate, and perhaps one of the only candidates for the job. We should expect to hear more on this very soon. Make sure to stay tuned to MinerRush for more on this and all things UTEP sports.

UTEP Football Rumors: DC Jeff Choate to Take Job at Florida

2013-04-17T00:03:37Z

Rumor has it that UTEP's new defensive coordinator Jeff Choate will be leaving town before ever coaching a game in the Sun Bowl. While there is no confirmation from UTEP Athletics, word has it that Choate has accepted a special teams position at the University of Florida.

Choate came to the Miners under new head coach Sean Kugler after spending a season as the linebackers coach at Washington State. Prior to that, however, Choate spent six years at Boise State where he served as running backs coach (2006-2008), linebackers coach (2009), and nickel backs coach (2010-2011), and was also the special teams coordinator in each of his years with the Broncos.

At Florida, the Gators have been without a special teams coordinator for some time now, and coach Will Muschamp has been expected to round out his coaching staff in the coming days.

According to Hays Carlyon of The Florida Times Union:

"Muschamp said he expects to have his staff filled out in the next week. Bryant Young resigned as UF's defensive tackles coach Wednesday. Muschamp could elect to hire a special teams coach, as the Gators already have one defensive line coach in Brad Lawing."

Choate doesn't have direct ties to Gator head coach Muschamp, but did coach alongside Florida's offensive coordinator Brent Pease from 2006-2011 at Boise State.

Again, there has been no official word from either side as to the hiring of Choate, so at this point these are simply rumors, but we will continue to monitor the situation as it develops. Make sure to stay tuned to MinerRush and @sbnminerrush on Twitter for more information on this story, and all things UTEP sports.

Miner Rush Bracket Challenge Winners

2013-04-10T19:30:35Z

We would like to thank everyone who joined this year's edition of the Miner Rush Bracket challenge. I for one found this year's tournament to be very interesting, mostly because my picks were horrible and games were so unpredictable. Nonetheless we have some winners who need to be recognized for their skills and predictions.

1st Place: John who finished with a total of 137 points. He is our winner of the Family Four pack of season tickets for the upcoming UTEP football season.

2nd Place: El Mas Chingon who finished with a total of 123 points. You will receive a UTEP Miners t-shirt.

3rd Place: Superfly TNT (Mark) who finished with a total of 119 points. You will receive a UTEP Miners t-shirt.

4th Place: Erica's Optimal (Erica) who finished with a total of 115 points. You will receive a UTEP Miners T-shirt.

If your name was mentioned for placing you MUST EMAIL us at sbnminerrush@gmail.com. Winners have ONLY THREE DAYS from today to claim their prize or we will go to the next person in line. Some of our winners in the bracket decided to hide their emails so we have no way of contacting you, therefore we need you to contact us.

A Season in Review: UTEP Men's Basketball

2013-03-18T23:41:03Z

All good things must come to an end and the men’s basketball season is no exception. We went from the low points to even the chance to be in the NCAA field of 68. We saw injuries that plagued us to one of the better home records we have had in the past couple of years. While all the success we had did not lead us to where we wanted to go, the fact that we possibly denied a CBI invitation is not the end of the world. Miner fans should be excited for the future with one of the (if not the best) recruiting classes the university has ever seen. UTEP is only a few good pieces away from being an NCAA team, but let us take a look back at this season and reflect on how much we have grown as a program and why we should be excited.

Non-Conference Play (November 3^rd 2012 to January 2^nd 2013)

The Miners got a lot of praise for having one of the tougher schedules in the nation at the beginning of the year. They also got a lot of ridicule as well being that this Miners team did not have a true leader or true go to guy compared to teams of the past such as Randy Culpepper or Stephon Jackson. UTEP did not find this to be a serious problem and added former Sam Houston State guard Konner Tucker to the team. Highly coveted out of high school, Tucker did not have the greatest of college careers going from school to school. To make matters worse, the Miners were going to be without McKenzie Moore for the first half of the season due to NCAA transfer rules. The Miners opened up the season with everyone on the team with the exception of Red Shirt Players (Tyler Tafoya and Matt Wilms), as well as Moore. UTEP opened up with an exhibition against Southeastern Oklahoma. The Miners won the game but in the process lost Konner Tucker to a broken hand. UTEP’s first official game was against Oral Roberts University which they won by a total of 20 points. The biggest test of the season at the time for the Miners was a four game stand away from home, one game at the University of Arizona and three others at the Old Spice Classic (Oklahoma, Clemson and Vanderbilt). This stretch of games for the Miners showed us why we really needed that sharp shooter. UTEP was getting blown out of the water and was straight up being outplayed by teams that the Miners could have beaten. Losing 4 straight was a low point for the team and the city, no one knew what was going to happen and most fans might have gave up early. The remedy to this team’s record was a rivalry game vs. New Mexico state. NMSU was a 20+ win team and an NCAA team from last season but they had not fared well recently in the Don Haskins Center. The Miners would fight it out and get a one point win. The next five games were at home including the Sun Bowl Invitational tournament. UTEP took on the likes of Idaho, UNLV, and Oregon before the tournament. The Miners would go on to defeat the Vandals by 4 before facing UNLV. This game was surrounded by horrible officiating that ended up being the dagger against the Miners. Several fans who were watching on TV got pictures and then posted them to social networking sites showing Anthony Bennett from UNLV standing clearly on the line with the ref looking at him. The result of that play was boost for the Running Rebels to get out of the tie and provided the spark for the two point win and the first loss at home this season for the Miners. The Miners only hope for getting out of another slump would be to defeat a tough Oregon Ducks team lead by former Rice player Arsalan Kazemi. No one imagine the Miners to defeat the Ducks or even to go to triple overtime with them but both these cases happened. The two remaining games took place against Arkansas Pine Bluff and Nebraska. UTEP went on to win the tournament behind MVP Konner Tucker’s outstanding performance. Colorado State was the next Miners opponent and the first away game since going 0-4 from November 15-25. UTEP held on as long as they could and put themselves in the position to win but came up short losing by 4. This would end up being a trend that UTEP could not escape this season. Now with a full squad, the Miners were ready to head into conference play with a 6-6 overall record on the early season (6-1 home, 0-5 away).

Conference USA play (January 9^th 2013 to March 15^th 2013)

UTEP continued playing on the road against a Tulane team that had not lost at home. The Miners would take that game and hand them their first loss of the season. All seemed well as UTEP defeated Marshall at home and was one of only three teams at that point of CUSA play to have 2 wins and have won 1 game on the road. In the midst of conference play, the Miners had two non-conference opponents in Houston Baptist and NMSU. Houston Baptist would be the first team they would face. The Miners easily won the contest by a final of 72 to 44. This was a fine tuning point for not only the starters, but the bench players as well. UTEP went on a stretch of games where they had poor shooting nights and even poorer free throw shooting nights. UTEP lost twice to Tulsa this season with both games being decided by three and four points respectively. One of the high points was an amazing buzzer beater by McKenzie Moore against East Carolina. UTEP would go on a bad stretch losing four out of five games against Tulsa, Houston, USM and rival NMSU. The only win in that stretch was against a UCF team with really nothing to play for this season since they were on a post season ban. UTEP would close the season with 2 home games and 2 away games. The first home game was a rematch vs. a Houston team that had the upper hand against the Miners back in Houston. UTEP prevailed and won by 10 points in a game that looked like a blow out. The Miners then traveled to Houston to face Rice. This time UTEP left Houston with a victory en route to the biggest home game of the season vs. Memphis. After a tough fought battle between both schools, Memphis walked away with a two point win. After the loss it was revealed that the Miners had secured the number three seed in the CUSA tournament and would face the winner of Rice and a team to be later revealed. UTEP really had nothing to prove against SMU, but left Dallas with a win. The Miners went three for four with the only loss coming against the Tigers. UTEP found out that their next match up would be against either Houston or Rice. After both teams dueled it out in the CUSA tournament opener, the Cougars earned the right to play the Miners. UTEP would defeat the Cougars for the second time this year and ended up playing against Southern Mississippi in the semi-finals. This game was a lot like the Oregon game, surrounded by horrible officiating and costly mistakes. UTEP would go on to lost to USM by a final of 85 to 67 behind a 20 point effort from C.J. Cooper. With UTEP going 18-14, 10-6 in conference play, they knew their season was now over and their fate was left to the selection committees. After all the selection shows commenced, UTEP’s name was left out of all the post season tournaments. It is not officially known if UTEP was offered a bid and it was denied, but we can only hope that UTEP had the best intentions if this was the case.

Final Statistics (Courtesy of ESPN):

Player

MIN

PPG

RPG

APG

SPG

BPG

TPG

FG%

FT%

3P%

Julian Washburn

34.6

12.3

4.2

1.7

0.9

0.3

1.8

.448

.700

.191

John Bohannon

24.8

10.2

6.3

1.4

0.7

1.7

1.9

.576

.649

.375

Konner Tucker

30.5

10.1

1.7

1.4

0.4

0.0

1.7

.390

.919

.397

McKenzie Moore

24.4

8.6

5.2

2.0

1.4

0.8

2.3

.454

.727

.351

Jacques Streeter

34.3

7.9

2.0

5.3

0.9

0.0

1.7

.402

.766

.394

Cedrick Lang

21.3

5.7

5.3

0.4

1.0

.576

.541

.000

C.J. Cooper

15.8

5.1

0.8

1.0

0.3

0.0

0.8

.405

.743

.385

Chris Washburn

14.9

4.4

2.9

0.6

0.8

0.5

1.5

.474

.495

.000

Jalen Ragland

13.7

3.8

0.9

0.4

0.1

0.2

.295

.900

.281

Hooper Vint

5.8

1.6

0.8

0.0

0.1

0.4

0.3

.600

.000

.500

Malcolm Moore

5.3

1.4

0.9

0.1

0.5

.500

.800

.000

Twymond Howard

5.6

1.3

1.1

0.2

0.1

.238

.545

.000

Season Statistics (Courtesy of ESPN):

Player

MIN

FGM

FGA

FTM

FTA

3PM

3PA

PTS

OFFR

DEFR

REB

AST

STL

BLK

Julian Washburn

1106

160

357

392

104

134

John Bohannon

719

110

191

114

297

135

184

Konner Tucker

762

187

126

253

McKenzie Moore

611

163

216

102

130

Jacques Streeter

1099

189

104

252

171

Cedrick Lang

681

118

182

118

171

C.J. Cooper

506

126

163

Chris Washburn

478

140

328

Totals

706

1571

453

669

177

504

2042

274

730

1004

428

396

171

118

Final Ranks:

Points Per Game: 264^th with 63.8

Rebounds Per Game: 304^th with 31.4

Assists Per Game: 130^th with 13.4

Field Goal Percentage: 87^th with 44.9%

Final Thoughts: UTEP had a better season than the record showed. They made great strides for being one of the youngest teams in the nation. Sure some felt that we were deserving of a tournament for experience purposes, but at the same time I cannot wait to see how awesome this new team is going to look next season especially in a weaker Conference USA.

MinerRush's Bracket Challenge

2013-03-18T21:47:31Z

Miner fans, the UTEP basketball season may be over, but March Madness is just about to hit high gear. Here's your chance to fill out an NCAA tournament bracket, compete against other Miner fans, and win cool prizes. Best of all, its absolutely free.

Come join us over at Yahoo for our bracket challenge by using the following link to find our group:

http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1/register/joinprivategroup_assign_team?GID=128859&P=miners1966

Once there, you can sign in using your Yahoo, Gmail, or Facebook accounts, and you can join the group by entering password miners1966 into the password slot.

Once again, come join the MinerRush bracket challenge (group #: 128859) over at Yahoo. Sign in, sign up (password: miners1966), compete against other Miner fans, and have your chance at winning some cool UTEP prizes.

If you have any issues signing up, make sure to contact us here, by email at sbnminerrush@gmail.com, or on Twitter @sbnminerrush, and we'll make sure to take care of any issues that you might have.

Also, make sure to spread the word about the bracket challenge! Invite friends by sharing the link above, or by giving them the group number and password. All brackets must be filled out prior to start of games on Thursday, so make sure to get them in as soon as possible!

PRIZES:

(1) One grand prize winner will receive a family four pack of season tickets to UTEP football games in the 2013 season, and (3) Three first place winners will receive a UTEP t-shirt.

***ALL PARTICIPANTS ARE SUBJECT TO THE OFFICIAL RULES FOUND HERE***