Bulldogs pound Golden Eagles, will play Tulsa for NCAA bid

Javier Cortez, Staff Reporter • March 14, 2014

The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs booked the final spot in the 2014 Conference USA men’s basketball championship. Thanks to dominating second half the Bulldogs trounced the Southern Miss Golden Eagles 88-70.

It was back and forth for most of the first half until Louisiana Tech finished the last five minutes of the first half on a 16-9 run and went into halftime with a six point lead. That carried over into the second half when Louisiana Tech started the second half on a 19-7 run and at one point had a 20 point lead.

Southern Miss made efforts to comeback, but could not cut the lead to single digits. Senior forward Michael Craig led the Golden Eagles with 19 points on nine for 11 shooting. Turnovers eventually plagued the Golden Eagles, the Bulldogs forced Southern Miss into 21 turnovers to six assists.

Southern Miss now stands at 27-6 with today loss. The Golden Eagles NCAA tournament hopes are still undecided as they will hope for an at large bid.

It was an all-around team effort for Louisiana Tech. Five Bulldogs were in double figures, and as a team the Bulldogs shot 48 percent from three hitting 12 of their 25 attempts which neutralized the Southern Miss zone defense that plagued UTEP last night.

The biggest contributor to Louisiana Tech’s dominate win was the Southern Miss foul trouble. Louisiana Tech went into the bonus with more than 10 minutes left in the second half and the double bonus just minutes later.

Louisiana Tech now moves to 27-6 and will face the Tulsa Golden Hurricane in the men’s championship game tomorrow morning at the Don Haskins Center.

Javier Cortez may be reached at [email protected]

About the Contributors

Javier Cortez, Staff Reporter

Javier Cortez is a staff reporter for The Prospector. He is a senior multimedia journalism major, with a minor in English Rhetoric. Javier was born and raised in El Paso, TX and before coming to UTEP in the summer of 2012, he graduated from Irvin High School, where he was a four-year varsity tennis player, a member of student council and a class officer for his graduating class. He has also worked for the El Paso Diablos as a sports information intern on their media relations team. In his spare time, Javier loves to write columns for the perspectives section in the school newspaper—whether it is sports, pop culture, religion, and society he loves to write about it. To go along with writing, Javier loves reading anything about sports, religion, and non-fiction.

Michaela Roman, Editor-in-Chief

Michaela is a Senior Digital Media Production major at The University of Texas at El Paso. As the Editor-in-Chief, and former Photo Editor of The Prospector, she has learned to stay organized, manage a staff of writers and photographers, meet deadlines, cover events and network with others. She also has freelance experience and a personal photography business. Michaela aspires to work as an editor for a large media outlet and one day go to graduate school to teach photojournalism.