UTEP Miners

Final Stats |  Photo Gallery by Michael Patrick Reese 

UTEP 71, UAB 69 (Box Score) 

Vince Hunter scored six of his game-high 22 points during a 13-0 run late in the second half, as UTEP came from behind to top UAB, 71-69, on Thursday night at the Don Haskins Center.

The Miners (13-7, 5-3 C-USA) gained ground in the C-USA standings as league-leading Western Kentucky fell at Louisiana Tech earlier in the night. UTEP is two games out of first place and tied with Middle Tennessee and Old Dominion for fourth as the conference season reaches its midway point this weekend.

The Miners have another important conference game coming up Saturday, as they will host the Blue Raiders (12-9, 5-3 C-USA) at 7.

It was another classic battle between UTEP and UAB (10-11, 6-2 C-USA) on Thursday. Five of the last six games between the schools have been decided by three points or less.

The Miners trailed for most of the game - they led for less than four minutes altogether - and were down 55-49 with under seven minutes remaining before scoring 13 in a row to right the ship.

"When you lose a couple in a row, it doesn't matter how you win. Just win," UTEP coach Tim Floyd said. "We beat a good basketball team tonight. A lot of things happened in that game. We played through early foul trouble with Vince Hunter. We played through additional foul trouble with Vince in the first three minutes of the second half, and sat him for eight minutes. His coming back into the ballgame, we decided we were down and it looked bleak with about 11 minutes to go. He got us going. He's a great talent. He did a lot of things for us, finished a lot of plays, some dysfunctional plays that he makes with a steal and open floor plays. He created for himself out of broken down situations."

Following the run, UTEP was up 62-55. The Miners went ahead 66-57 with 47 seconds remaining on a dunk by Hunter before withstanding a barrage of three pointers by the Blazers - four in the final 38 seconds.

UTEP was much better at the foul line (21-for-33, 13-for-16 in the second half), but nearly not good enough. After Earvin Morris split two free throws with five seconds left to make it a two-point game, UAB's William Lee missed an open three pointer at the buzzer.

Morris scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, while C.J. Cooper scored in double figures for just the second time in 13 games in his return to the starting lineup.

"Our guard play was suspect with Earvin and Omega not playing to their standard. But Earvin snapped out of it with about eight minutes to go and had a stretch where he made a three and a couple of plays at the rim that really helped us," Floyd said. "I thought Julian Washburn stepped up and made a couple of big baskets when we were down five, down seven, 12 to 14-foot jump shots that we've watched him make a bunch in his career. Glad to see him make those kinds of plays."

Washburn scored seven of his nine points in the second half.

Miner big man Matt Willms played only nine minutes while continuing to labor with a foot injury.

"We're not sure about his injury status," Floyd said. "We're very, very concerned with that. Big guys get these foot injuries. It's an issue and I don't know what it is. I hope it's not a metatarsal like a lot of them get. We'll know more about that tomorrow, but I know he's in a lot of pain right now.

"Hooper Vint's minutes are going to become bigger and bigger. We're going to have to talk to our players on our team, and see if anybody is willing to come off redshirt. At this point they've lost a lot of games. If that's the case we're going to need some help with somebody down the stretch because we're getting dangerously thin right now."

UTEP's redshirting players are Tevin Caldwell, Jake Flaggert, Trey Touchet and Terry Winn.

UAB was led by Robert Brown, who scored 16 points. Hakeem Baxter and Denzell Watts added 11 and 10 respectively.

The Miners shot 56.5 percent in the second half and 46.9 percent for the game, a smidge better than UAB (46.2 percent). UTEP outrebounded a C-USA opponent for just the second time this season, 37-32. The Miners took advantage of a glaring free throw discrepancy. UAB went to the line just five times, making four.

The Miners were down by as many as nine points before coming up big down the stretch. UAB went over six minutes without scoring from the 7:41 mark to 1:16.

"We mixed defenses a little bit, we got a little mileage out of three different defenses," he said. "They were really in a rhythm and routine. It really bothered us. They run great actions. They run great, great stuff. This is the most aggressive Jerod Haase team that we've played against. They are really outstanding defensively and really bothered us on the defensive end. We were able to finally get some defensive boards, which we couldn't do in the first half."