UTEP Notes For LA Tech Game (PDF)
With the Conference USA Tournament tipping off in two weeks at Frisco, the UTEP men's basketball team has some work to do to ensure that it's included in the 12-team field.
The Miners (8-18, 3-11 C-USA) are currently 12th in the league standings, a game up on Rice (5-22, 2-12) and two games ahead of Charlotte (5-20, 1-13). UTEP still has a game remaining at Rice on March 1.
UTEP needs to win as many of its remaining four regular season games as possible to clinch a berth in the tournament and, potentially, improve its seed. Crunch time starts this weekend when the Miners play their final two home games of the 2017-18 campaign versus LA Tech (Thursday) and Southern Miss (Saturday), both at 7 p.m.
"We have four games left in the regular season and basically six practices with a couple of shootarounds," UTEP Interim Head Coach Phil Johnson said. "Can we give everything that we've got? That's the message [to the team]. They all seem like they want to do that, and I think they will."
The Miners would rather move on from their last game, an 82-33 setback at Old Dominion.
"I knew going into that game that it was going to be very difficult to score," Johnson said. "They are the best defensive team in our league by far. And not only that, they're talented and they're tough. We were at their place. They had beaten UTSA two nights earlier by 40. I knew that was going to be an issue."
Johnson said the Miners can learn a lot from their performance in Norfolk.
"I think it's like anything in life when you have a setback," he said. "You have a couple of choices that you can make. You can lie down and cry about it, or you can make a choice to do something about it and get better.
"We need to go play well this week at home in front of our fans. It's our last two home games. And then we have a bigger picture, trying to get in the Conference USA Tournament. We're right there, but we need to win a few more games."
Bottom line is, the Miners got the split on the road trip that they needed, winning 87-86 at Charlotte two nights earlier. Now it's all about how they respond to the Old Dominion loss.
"I think our team has been pretty resilient," Johnson said. " We go to Charlotte with our backs against the wall and yeah, they're at the bottom of the league but they have a good basketball team. They have talent. They shot the ball very, very well and yet we were able to pull that one out. We have some resolve left in us."
Thursday's opponent, the Bulldogs, took an 0-3 C-USA mark into the first game with the Miners on Jan. 6. Since then, LA Tech has gone 7-5 in league play including a four-game win streak from Jan. 18-Feb. 1. The Bulldogs are 1-7 on the road this season, including 1-5 in C-USA play with a win over Florida Atlantic (67-62) and losses to WKU (69-68), Marshall (78-65), Middle Tennessee (72-57), UAB (74-62) and FIU (71-68). Senior guard Jacobi Boykins leads LA Tech, averaging 14.6 ppg while sophomore guard DaQuan Bracey chips in with 13.7 ppg.
LA Tech is first in C-USA in three-point field goal percentage (.389) and third in blocked shots (4.0 bpg) and three-point field goals per game (8.7). Boykins is first in the league in free throw percentage (.913) and second in three-pointers made per game (2.9). Bracey is first in three-point field goal percentage (.463). Junior guard Derric Jean is second in three-point field goal percentage (.463). The Bulldogs rank 30th nationally in three-point field goal percentage, and Boykins is fifth in the country in free throw percentage.
In the first meeting between the teams, the Bulldogs dealt the Miners a 97-88 loss.
"We'll have to defend better," Johnson said. "Scoring wasn't an issue in that game. I thought our offense really flowed. We really had a nice attack. It was 36-34 with 30 seconds to go [in the first half], we had back-to-back turnovers and we go into halftime with a 40-36 deficit. We really hung around until the final minutes of that game. It's a tough place to go play. They're extremely talented. They shot the ball very, very well that night. We'll have to play better and defend better."
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