March 2, 2010
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HUNTINGTON, W. VA. (AP) -- Randy Culpepper scored 32 points to lead UTEP (No. 21 ESPN/USA Today, No. 24 AP) to an 80-76 victory over Marshall on Tuesday night, clinching the Miners' first outright Conference USA championship.
"I'm proud of our guys," UTEP coach Tony Barbee said. "We've grown up a lot. You don't win in the places that we've won without being mentally tough. We overcame some adversity tonight."
The Miners were facing Marshall on a night where three Herd seniors who combined to average nearly 30 points were playing their final home game. UTEP also battled through foul trouble to two starters, Derrick Caracter and Jeremy Williams, who were on the floor for only five minutes each in the opening half.
UTEP was ahead 62-51 with nine minutes remaining but surrendered the lead and needed a strong finish from Caracter, who scored 10 of his 18 points in the final five minutes. His layup with 31 seconds remaining put the Miners ahead 78-76.
Marshall lost the ball out of bounds with 10 seconds remaining and Culpepper completed the scoring with two free throws.
Claude Britten added 14 points for UTEP (23-5, 14-1), which has won 13 straight and tied the school record for consecutive road wins with seven, previously achieved by the 1965-66 national championship team.
Tyler Wilkerson led Marshall (22-8, 10-5) with 22 points and 16 rebounds. Freshman Hassan Whiteside had 20 points, 14 rebounds and six blocked shots for the Thundering Herd, who saw their seven-game winning streak snapped.
"When you have a shotblocker like Whiteside, you can't go around him. You've got to go through him," Barbee said. "You've got to put a body on him and go right to his chest."
Culpepper, the conference's third-leading scorer, has the two highest scoring games in the league this season and Marshall did little to stop him in the second half, when he scored 22 points.
Culpepper hit a three-pointer at the halftime buzzer, then made three more in the first 2:28 of the second half, plus a free throw, to erase a 10-point deficit and put the Miners ahead 41-38.
Culpepper followed a soaring, one-handed dunk with another 3-pointer that gave UTEP its largest lead, 62-51, with 9:25 left.
"Coach told me at halftime that I was playing well and to keep it up," Culpepper said. "Once I hit a couple of threes in the second half Julyan (Stone) said he was going to keep going to me."
Despite Culpepper's show, Marshall surged ahead by going after rebounds. The Thundering Herd made three baskets after missed shots in a two-minute span and Damier Pitts' three-pointer with four minutes left gave Marshall a 72-68 lead.
Marshall missed eight of its first 10 shots and fell behind 16-10 but used a 10-0 run late in the first half to go ahead. Pitts' jumper in the lane put Marshall ahead 36-26 with 45 seconds left until halftime before Culpepper cut into the double-digit lead with his buzzer-beating trifecta.
Culpepper moved into fourth place on UTEP's all-time scoring list with 1,590 points on Tuesday, passing Tim Hardaway (1,586 points).
UTEP has tied the school-record for conference wins with 14. The 2004-05 Miners finished 14-4 while playing an 18-game Western Athletic Conference slate.
UTEP improved to 5-0 versus Marshall over the last five years, the only team it hasn't lost to since joining C-USA. The Miners are 3-0 versus the Herd at the Cam Henderson Center with the wins coming by a total of nine points.
The Miners will close out the regular season before a sold-out crowd on Saturday at the Haskins Center against UAB. The game will be televised in El Paso on Time Warner Cable MetroSports Southwest Channel 24 as part of "Fan Appreciation Day" beginning at 7 p.m. MT.
Then it's on to the C-USA Tournament as the top seed, and Barbee said the Miners will have their hands full.
"We've done our part in terms of the second phase of the season - the conference schedule," Barbee said. "But the postseason is totally different. Everybody starts out 0-0 and even the bottom teams in the league have life.
"We're going to enjoy this win, but we have a hard game on Saturday. I told our guys that the only thing we're guaranteed right now is we're going to the NIT," Barbee said. "We still have some business to take care of and we can't feel comfortable. We've got more work to do."
