Miners hold off Green Wave comeback, 69-58

UTEP's big lead too much for Tulane

Tulane has been a second-half team this season under first-year coach Ed Conroy and the Green Wave turned in another stellar second-half performance on Wednesday night.

However, the 22-point hole they dug was just a little too deep to climb out of against the strong Miners.

UTEP (14-4, 2-1) knocked down 6-of-12 from beyond the arc in the first half to help build a 40-22 halftime advantage. The Miners built that working margin to 22 with 18:39 to play.

While the Green Wave could have waved the white flag, they didn't. Tulane began to chip away and it finally cut the deficit to single digits when Jordan Callahan's lay-up with 4:24 left made it 61-53. A three-pointer by Callahan with 3:19 to play cut the lead to seven, but Conroy's comeback kids couldn't get any closer.

Tulane (12-4, 2-1), which had its six-game winning streak snapped with the loss, shot just 27 percent in the first half as opposed to 47 for UTEP. They bounced back to shoot 48 percent after halftime, but were still just 3-of-13 from beyond the arc.

Rifleman Randy Culpepper finished with 26 points for UTEP to lead all scorers. He was 11-of-20 from the floor and 4-of-8 from deep. Jeremy Williams, Claude Britten, and Christian Polk also scored in double figures for the Miners. Guard Julyan Stone tallied just five points, but he grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds and dished out eight assists.

Tulane was led by Kendall Timmons, who finished with 20 points and eight boards. Callahan concluded the contest with 12 points and Richard pulled down a team-high nine rebounds.