Nov. 13, 2007
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Stefon Jackson scored 21 of his 27 points in the second half as UTEP beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 77-62, in the NIT Season Tip-Off on Tuesday in College Station.
With the victory the Miners (2-0) moved into Wednesday's South Region title game against either 15th-ranked Texas A&M or Oral Roberts, who met in Tuesday's nightcap. Wednesday's final will be nationally televised on ESPNU beginning at 7 p.m. MST.
"It was a good win for us against a good team that is well-coached," UTEP coach Tony Barbee said. "This shows the difference between this year's team and last year's team. This is a much more resilient bunch. We have guys who are all committed to winning and will do whatever it takes to win."
Jackson picked up two fouls early and played only six minutes in the first half. Without him the Miners struggled, falling behind 15-11 midway through the first period before battling back to take a 30-24 lead at the intermission.
UTEP shot only 33 percent in the first half and was outrebounded 17-10, but the Miners stayed in the game by forcing 19 turnovers by the Islanders (0-2).
"Corpus Christi wanted to slow the game down, and for the most part they did that in the first half," Barbee said. "We went to the full court press in the second half to speed up the game."
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, a 2007 NCAA Tournament team with one returning starter in senior center Chris Daniels, hung around for the first 10 minutes of the second half. A three-pointer by Daniels pulled TAMUCC to within three points (50-47) with 10:11 to play before the Miners went on a 6-0 run to up their advantage to 56-47. Jackson scored five of UTEP's points during the spurt.
UTEP led by at least six points the rest of the night. A 7-0 run over 1:19 turned a 66-55 Miner lead into a 73-55 bulge and put the Islanders away.
Randy Culpepper scored 17 points, including five three-pointers, for the Miners, and Marvin Kilgore chipped in with 11 points and only one turnover in 38 minutes.
The Miners shot 53 percent in the second half in outscoring TAMUCC 47-38.
Daniels scored 30 points on 11-of-16 shooting for the Islanders. He made 3-of-4 shots from three-point territory. TAMUCC shot 40.4 percent to UTEP's 45.1 percent and finished with 26 turnovers.
"We didn't know much about them coming into the game," Barbee said. "But the one thing we noticed from looking at their box scores was that they turned over the ball quite a bit. We figured we could get some pressure on them, whether it be full court or half court pressure. We weren't able to convert the turnovers into points in the first half. In the second half we did."
