The UTEP men's basketball team desperately wants to win now, starting Thursday night against a 15-1 North Texas team that at the moment is the class of Conference USA. But so much of what's happening this season goes on with an eye to the future.
The hope is that vision of a better tomorrow will look a lot like the Mean Green squad on the other bench.
North Texas was scraping along at the bottom of the league two years ago, then got a new coach to rebuild and kick-start the program in Grant McCasland. McCasland played at Baylor when UTEP coach Rodney Terry was an assistant there and the two have been close friends since.