UTEP Men's Basketball Opens 105th Season Monday Against Division II UTPB

The UTEP men's basketball team begins its 105th season Monday, hosting Division II UTPB at the Don Haskins Center at 7 p.m. MT. The game is the 1,650th in school history. It counts on the Miners' record, but UTPB will treat it as an exhibition.

The Nov. 3 date is the earliest season start in program history, edging last year's Nov. 4 opener, a 102-55 win over Sul Ross State. The game is part of a doubleheader, with the UTEP women facing Prairie View A&M at 12 p.m. MT. Tickets are available at UTEPMiners.com/tickets or by calling (915) 747-UTEP. The men's game will air on 600 ESPN El Paso with Jon Teicher and Steve Yellen, and stream on ESPN+ with Andy Morgan and former Miners assistant Bobby Braswell.

UTEP finished 18-15 last season and lost in the Conference USA Championships quarterfinals to Liberty, which won both the regular season and the tournament. The roster has been heavily reshaped since. All five starters and 11 letter winners are gone, taking with them 89.0 percent of the scoring, 77.7 percent of the rebounding, 90.3 percent of the assists and 90.8 percent of the steals.

Four players return: juniors Elijah Jones and Trey Horton III, sophomore KJ Thomas and redshirt junior Jordan Hernandez, who sat out last year. Jones led the group in scoring at 4.2 points per game and rebounding at 2.3 per game. Ten newcomers join them under head coach Joe Golding, including junior-college players Caleb Blackwell, LA Hayes and Mouhamed Mbaye. Blackwell was ranked the No. 12 JUCO player nationally and averaged 13.1 points and 5.9 assists at South Plains.

The Division I transfers are C.J. Smith, David Tubek, Kaseem Watson, Tyreese Watson and Jamal West Jr. West has played 108 Division I games and has scored in 41 straight. Freshman Bobby Montgomery Jr. and Division II transfer Cassius Brooks, who scored more than 900 points in two years at Arkansas Tech, complete the group.

UTPB is also retooling, with 10 of its 14 players new. Bryceson Burns, at 5.5 points per game, is the top returning scorer for a team that went 16-12 last season under fifth-year coach Kyle Tolin. The Falcons were picked ninth in the Lone Star Conference preseason poll for the second straight year.

UTEP has historically done well in openers, going 77-27 all-time and winning 58 of the last 64. It is 3-1 in openers under Golding and has opened at home in 18 of the past 19 years. Golding, in his fifth season, is 70-63 at UTEP and has led the team to three winning seasons in four years. Conference USA coaches picked the Miners to finish eighth in the preseason poll, and no UTEP player made the preseason all-conference team.

UTEP then hosts Western New Mexico at 7 p.m. MT on Friday, the second of three straight home games to begin the year.