UTEP's NCAA tournament at-large hopes pretty much went bye-bye on Monday when the Miners were pushed around on their home floor by Central Florida in a 74-68 loss.
And now, everything appears to be spinning out of control after what unfolded on the sideline in the second half of Wednesday's 83-76 loss at East Carolina.
UTEP pulled off the rare feat of having not one, but two coaches ejected in the same half via technical fouls. Tim Floyd, who's had a flair for controversy in recent years, got the boot and needed to be escorted off of the floor by police early in the second half after jumping into an official's face when he was T'd up for the second time. Assistant coach Phil Johnson took over, but earned his own dismissal not much later.
The video below gets really juicy at right around the 1:20 mark.
Just a week ago, UTEP was 19-5 with a 7-2 record in Conference USA. But now, it's lost three of four. The Miners' only plausible excuse could be having to play four games in one week as a result of the Feb. 2 game with UCF being postponed and rescheduled for Monday afternoon. But, still, it was a home game.
It's not out of the ordinary for a coach to intentionally draw a tech to fire up his team in a close game, but this looked like it was simply a week's worth of frustrations boiling over for the staff. Even though UTEP kept it close the rest of the way, you have to wonder how that looked to the Miners' players — especially after Floyd didn't just remove his jacket following the first whistle, but then made a spectacle of twirling and flinging it.
"I think it was a coaching box violation," said Floyd, who landed at UTEP this season following a fall from grace at USC after the 2008-09 season. "I had my big toe out of the box, received a warning, turned my back and walked to the bench and got a technical.
"I'd never seen (the official who issued all the technicals) before and I don't know who he is. I've always earned my technicals and I didn't feel like I earned it."
Whether he earned the first one or not, Floyd and Johnson clearly were on a mission to get the rest of them, adding a bit of viral evidence to UTEP's sudden slide.
Ryan Greene also covers UNLV and the Mountain West Conference for the Las Vegas Sun. Read his Rebels coverage and follow him on Twitter.
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