UTEP basketball team getting ready for scrimmage & trip to Costa Rica

UTEP basketball is coming early this year as the Miners prepare for their upcoming trip to play some exhibition games in Costa Rica. The team is practicing all week before they leave on August 15 to play three games before returning to El Paso on August 20. “It’s good that we have these 10 days to practice before we go to Costa Rica and build some team chemistry,” Freshman Kobe Magee said. The Miners will be competing twice against McGill University and the University of British Columbia. “With 20 practices, and I’m sure we’re going to sneak in one or two in Costa Rica between the waterfalls and everything else, we’re going to move these new comers along,” head coach Tim Floyd said. “We’re going to put them in a better position for them to have some success than they would have otherwise.” The team is having its preseason scrimmage on Saturday, August 12 at 5p.m in the Don Haskins Center. General admission seats to the scrimmage are $10 and fans will have the opportunity to vote for the starting lineup for the first game in Costa Rica. The Miners lost their 6-5 recruit Roderick Williams from Price High School in Los Angeles, but the team is not worried about filling the void. “The void that Roderick left we are not going to fill this year,” head coach Tim Floyd said. “I see no need to fill it this year where as a year ago we had to reach, reach, reach late to try and find some guys who probably weren’t good enough to be here.” Williams left a letter saying that he came to the decision after praying and deciding to go back home to Los Angeles. “We were hopeful that he would have another conversation with God and come back,” Floyd said. “But it didn’t happen so we’re going to move on.”