UTEP vs Tulsa Basketball Recap

UTEP 80, Marshall 76

The UTEP Miners absorbed multiple blows from the Marshall Thundering Herd on Tuesday night, but a team bent on winning a conference crown continued to land repeated punches of its own. When the final bell rang and the points were tallied up, a group of young men had restored a bit of lost luster to a once-proud program.

In a 15-round middleweight bout, UTEP never connected on a knockout punch, but coach Tony Barbee's team did sew up an outright Conference USA title, capturing the regular season championship in the league with a four-point triumph at the Henderson Center in Huntington, W. Va. The thrilling victory ensures the Miners of the top seed in the upcoming C-USA Tournament, but more importantly, it keeps them in line for an NCAA Tournament ticket. As long as they can win out between now and the C-USA final on Saturday, March 13, the boys from West Texas should be able to get an at-large berth in the event that they don't get the automatic bid in the league.

How did UTEP win its first-ever C-USA championship after joining the conference in the 2005-2006 season? Why were the Miners able to win their first conference title of any kind since they captured the 2004 crown in the Western Athletic Conference? In a word, resilience. Barbee's ballclub just doesn't flinch in the crucible of late-season pressure.

Marshall started this game strong. Coach Donnie Jones had to like what he saw from his MU crew, as the home team bolted to a 36-26 lead in the final minute of the first half. Marshall smothered UTEP big man Derrick Caracter, holding the power forward to just two points on only four field goal attempts. The Thundering Herd forced 10 first-half turnovers from the Miners, who also shot just 33 percent from the field and found themselves in need of urgent answers.

True to the character - or should we say Caracter? - of this team, UTEP rallied 'round the flag and fought back on the road. The Miners hit 58 percent of their field goals in the second half (20 of 35) en route to 51 points after halftime. A 17-2 run enabled the visitors from West Texas to wipe out Marshall's 10-point advantage, and at the 9:31 mark of regulation, UTEP owned a 62-51 lead and complete control of the game's momentum.

Marshall, though, would come roaring back. The Herd - led by forwards Tyler Wilkerson (22 points, 16 rebounds) and Hassan Whiteside (20 points, 14 boards, six blocked shots) - grabbed a 72-68 lead with just over four minutes left. With the locals going wild in West Virginia, it appeared quite possible - even likely - that a UTEP team in need of quality wins was going to be denied so close to the regular season finish line. UTEP lacks high-caliber non-conference wins on its resume, so an outright C-USA regular season championship was going to be needed in order to bolster this program's NCAA Tournament portfolio. The Miners found themselves and their season in a place of peril when Marshall - once up 10, then down 11 - shot back in front by four.

That's when yet another "Caracter infusion" lifted the Miners over the top.

Caracter - once a dream recruit for Rick Pitino at Louisville but then a problem child who didn't cultivate good habits - has been reborn in El Paso this season, and he showed why in the stretch run of this showdown. The 6-9 junior from New Jersey scored 16 second-half points after his miserable first half. More particularly, Caracter scored eight points in the final four minutes, and hit two go-ahead baskets in the final 65 seconds, one on a putback and one on a half-hook in the middle of the lane. UTEP tightened the screws just enough on defense to get a final stop inside the 10-second mark of regulation, and when Miner guard Randy Culpepper drained two free throws to provide a four-point margin with 3.9 seconds left, the ever-elusive C-USA title - which had been residing in Memphis for so many years - finally found a new home in the West Texas town of El Paso.

After several years in college basketball's wilderness, it's entirely fitting: Some persistent Miners finally struck gold once again.