Dec. 20, 2008
Final Stats |
Photo Gallery by Ivan Pierre Aguirre 
UTEP-NMSU Box Score (PDF) 
Six days after yielding 90 points to New Mexico State in Las Cruces, UTEP put the clamps on the Aggies on Saturday at the Don Haskins Center.
The Miners harassed NMSU into a 32.8 percent shooting night on their way to an 84-69 triumph over their I-10 rivals.
UTEP (6-4) survived the loss of second-leading scorer Randy Culpepper - who picked up his second technical foul as the teams were heading to the locker room at halftime - and responded by putting together one of its best halves of the year. The Miners outscored the Aggies 45-36 after the break, shooting 54.2 percent from the field.
UTEP led 39-33 at the midway point, then built a 21-point cushion in the second period before holding off a late rally by the Aggies.
The end result was the first split of the I-10 series since the 2001-02 season. One team had swept the other in each of the last six years.
Stefon Jackson led the Miners with 33 points, including 21 in the second half. It was his ninth career 30-point game, tying him with Nate Archibald and Antoine Gillespie for the second-best total in school history. Jim Barnes is the record-holder with sixteen 30-point games.
Jackson slid past Charlotte's Demarco Johnson into seventh place on the all-time Conference USA scoring chart on Saturday as well. He now has 1,784 career points, 47 behind UTEP's all-time point producer Brandon Wolfram.
Culpepper added 11 first-half points before getting ejected from the game for receiving his second technical foul. The first came for taunting a New Mexico State player following a dunk and the second was the result of an altercation with an Aggie as the teams were walking off at halftime.
Freshman Jason Jones started the second half in Culpepper's place and had a terrific game, supplying eight points, seven rebounds, two assists and a steal in 25 minutes.
Jones' team-leading seven boards staked the Miners to a 46-42 advantage on the glass.
The Aggies (5-5) never led after UTEP's Julyan Stone buried a three pointer 15 seconds in to christen the scoring.
UTEP used a 13-2 run early in the second half to turn a 39-35 lead into a 52-37 advantage. After the Aggies sliced their deficit to nine points (54-45) with 15:23 left on a Wendell McKines dunk, the Miners rattled off seven unanswered points to lead 61-45. That was part of an overall 13-4 spurt that lifted UTEP's lead to 67-47 with 8:48 remaining.
Hamidu Rahman (19 points), Jahmar Young (18) and Troy Gillenwater (14) each scored in double figures for NMSU.
Stone dished out a career-high 12 assists, tied for the fourth-best game total in school history.
The rivalry game was even more heated than usual, with the teams combining to pick up five technical fouls.
UTEP will take a nine-day holiday break between games before returning to action at the Cable Car Classic on Dec. 29 in Santa Clara, Calif. The Miners will take on James Madison at 9 p.m. MST before meeting either '08 NCAA Tournament team Belmont or host Santa Clara on Dec. 30.
