March 13, 2010
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Kelvin Lewis scored 28 points and made 11-of-15 shots as seventh seed Houston stunned UTEP, 81-73, in the championship game of the Conference USA Tournament on Saturday in Tulsa.
"When you're not ready to play, anybody can beat anybody," UTEP coach Tony Barbee said. "The key to this game was when you play this early in the day, the team that's ready to play when that ball is thrown up is the team that comes out on top, and obviously, we weren't ready to play."
The Cougars completed an amazing run through the tournament, winning four games in four days. Houston hadn't won more than three games in a row all season entering the event, but has its longest winning streak of the year and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Houston becomes the fourth team in C-USA history to win four games in four days at the conference tournament, joining Marquette in 1997, Charlotte in 1999 and St. Louis in 2000.
The Cougars (19-15) ended UTEP's (26-6) 16-game winning streak - ironically enough, two months to the day that they dealt the Miners their last defeat. Houston knocked off UTEP at Hofheinz Pavilion, 75-65, on Jan. 13, and the Miners' hadn't lost since.
UTEP built a nine-point lead several times in the game, and had a chance to extend a 65-56 advantage when Lewis missed a three pointer with 8:09 remaining and Arnett Moultrie secured the defensive rebound for the Miners. But Moultrie missed wildly on a long jumper at the other end, and Lewis buried a triple to close the gap to 65-59 - a big turning point in the game.
The Cougars took their first lead since midway through the first half, 71-70, on a three pointer by Lewis with 3:15 to go, and things kind of snowballed from there as UTEP scored only three points down the stretch.
Randy Culpepper scored 20 points, Derrick Caracter 18 and Moultrie 12 for the Miners, whose 15 turnovers led to 18 points for the Cougars.
UTEP, which has won only once under coach Tony Barbee when allowing 80 points or more, surrendered its highest point total since Jan. 9.
UTEP will learn its NCAA Tournament fate when pairings are announced on CBS Sunday at 4 p.m. MT.
"Hopefully this serves as a wake-up call because if it doesn't, then it could be a short exit in whatever tournament we get into," Barbee said. "So if we don't learn from this--what I've always said is `I don't like to learn from close losses, I want to learn from close wins.' I thought we'd matured and grown beyond this point where we wouldn't be ready to play in a game as big as this."
UTEP dropped to 5-6 all-time in conference championship games. The Miners won the WAC Tournament in 1984, 1986, 1989, 1990 and 2005.
