Game Fourteen: UTEP 69, Rice 51

"There are certain things I can't say. But this has been a horrible week. It's been a horrible week at school. These psych labs are just going to kill me, the coach doesn't like the fact that practice has to be rearranged to accomodate my psych lab. I am the only UTEP player majoring in psych.

It's been a horrible personal week as well. And I'm definitely not talking about that, no way, no how. Just to say that someone who I thought was a very close friend turned on me, and then tried to turn the team on me. I don't think it worked, but I know who my real friends are now.

I thought I could work this out on the basketball court. I don't think that we really took Rice all that seriously. #4 and I (Deborah Scheller) were matched up against each other. Well, she had a hair up her butt and she was out of control. Probably by accident, but she stuck her finger in my eye when she was waving those arms of her around.

The ref didn't see it, and I went down. I left the court with no points scored and 18:23 left on the clock in the first half. I didn't return to the game. They sent me to get my eye checked out later on.

I guess Rice got bold and they took an 8-4 lead. Coach Ballard let the team have it. "Get your asses in the game!" she said. We went on a 10-0 run and that put us in the lead again. We didn't look back.

But we couldn't blow out Rice. We should be knocking a team like Rice senseless, but they hung in there. We scored the first four points of the second half to lead 37-26...but Rice went on a 10-0 run to close the game to 37-36.

Then we got serious. We didn't blow Rice out by forty, but we kept the at length for the rest of the game. Coach Ballard said that was an ugly win. Ugly-ass win, and I could only see it out of one eye. But we'll take it.

So they managed to get in touch with an eye doctor, one special visit to the office later...and they checked out my eye. I had some swelling due to a tiny cut. Some antibiotics, and two days of ice packs and ibuprofen and my vision should clear up completely in time for the Houston game. I can hope.

Our next game is at home against Houston. I'm going to wear goggles. This game is going to be on ESPN 2. Everyone I know back home in Pulaski County will be watching that game. Just let me loose, God."

-- Brenda Dean






It's been a busy week and as you can tell, there haven't been any recent posts. The dramatic touches come from a book that I might write someday. So there you go, maybe it will be interesting.

Anyway, without Dean on the court no one dominated. Only four players broke the 10 point barrier, and the top scorer on each team only scored 14 points. However, UTEP picked up 40 rebounds and that did it.

I went ahead and used the secondary rating for Rice players when the Secondary rating was better than Field Goal rating. It didn't help Rice.

Brenda will be back for the Houston game just in time. (She had a Z Injury result, as you can guess.) Here are the current RPI rankings:

AP Poll RPI: 50
Coaches Poll RPI: 42

Playing the 4-10 Rice hurt UTEP's strength of schedule, but UTEP still gets two votes in the Coaches Poll. Houston is 10-4, so a win should raise all boats.