Wednesday Sports Update: Miners clip men at Tudor with late break

By Brody Rollins     2/12/09 6:00pm

After seven lead changes and eight ties, the University of Texas-El Paso's basketball team pulled away in the final minutes for the 67-58 victory over Riceª at Tudor Fieldhouse. The Miners used a stifling full-court press to slow down the improving Owls offense, which came into Wednesday night's game averaging over 75 points in their last four contests.

Rice struggled getting the ball across the midline and often wasted 10 seconds or more of the shot clock before finally setting up their offense.

Despite their offensive difficulties, the Owls led most of the first half before a late run by the Miners gave them a 34-28 lead heading into the break.

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In the second half, the Owls battled back to take a 50-48 lead with 7:53 left off a layup by sophomore center Trey Stanton.

Stanton led the team with 20 points on 9-11 shooting and grabbed 10 boards.

After the basket, the Miners embarked on a 9-1 run that gave them the 57-51 lead with less than five minutes to play.

Playing without senior forward Aleks Perka for the second straight game, the undermanned Owls frontcourt was worn down by the Miners, who frequently subbed post players into the game. Careless turnovers, frequently due to fatigue, led to 17 Miner points in the game.

"They had a good rotation going," Stanton said. "They would play two guys and sub two new ones in. We definitely missed our bigs since it would've been good to get us a break, but you can't rush recovery and they'll come back when they're ready."

The Owls had a chance to cut the lead to three points with under two minutes to play after a miss by the Miners, but senior guard Rodney Foster was unable to connect on a three-pointer with UTEP leading 61-55.

Foster scored 16 in the game with six assists and came into the game leading the conference in three-point average, but struggled when the Miners defended him with 6'6'' guard Julyan Stone.

"The switch threw off our offense because coming off the high pick we have a lot of options, but they were able to disrupt that initial part which bogged down our offense," Foster said.

Freshman guard Connor Frizzelle fouled out of the game after Foster's miss, leading to a pair of made free throws by Randy Culpepper, who scored 20 points for the Miners.

Stefon Jackson, Conference USA's second-leading scorer, added 23 points.

The Miners ability to get to the free-throw line proved to be the difference as they made 23 of 30 shots from the charity stripe, compared to just 17 attempts for the Owls.

For the game, however, Rice held UTEP to 38 percent shooting from the field and 2-13 from the three-point.

Perka, who injured his ankle against the University of Southern Mississippi 10 days ago, will likely return to action this Saturday afternoon when the Owls travel to Dallas to take on Southern Methodist University.

"We played six guys almost thirty minutes and that's a little unfortunate, but it's all we have right now," head coach Ben Braun said. "We wore down, and that showed.

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