The UTEP Miners reflect on their loss to Middle Tennessee. Bret Bloomquist/El Paso Times
On March 19, the NCAA selection committee likely will determine that only one team from Conference USA is worthy of its 64-team tournament.
As UTEP painfully learned in a lost weekend that finished with Middle Tennessee's 79-49 thumping of the Miners on Saturday in the Don Haskins Center — which came two days after UAB's demolition of UTEP — that is terribly unfair.
A Blue Raiders team that often finds itself snubbed from the big tournament looked very much like one of the best teams in the nation, thoroughly overwhelming UTEP from the tip.