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The Miners men’s basketball team slid by Southern Mississippi, 78-73, Thursday night at the Don Haskins Center. UTEP now has won five straight wins, making their win streak the longest in Conference USA.
To start the game off, Lee Moore had a strong start in the first half with 16-points. The Miners had a hot start to the game, with a 13-0- run against Southern Miss. Their defense was relentless to start the game, keeping Southern Miss scoreless until 14:19 left in the first half. As the first half wore on, Southern Miss had a strong 12-2 run with 2:01 left as they cut the Miners’ lead down to 36-34 to end the first half.
Guards Omega Harris and Dominic Artis had a cold first half only scoring a combined two-points and only shot 1-10 from the field.
“Omega and Dominic were not very good first half,” head coach Tim Floyd said. “Lee Moore was terrific in the first half. Moore didn’t care that he didn’t make a point in second half and that’s much credit to him.”
The Miners turned it up later in second half making a big turn around after a Southern Miss 12-4 run to start the half. They were able to tie the ball game, 54-54, with 7:30 left in the game.
They tied it from a 11-6 run and that’s when the Miners’ strong guard play was exposed. Omega Harris and Dominic Artis were on a tear in the late second half. Dominic Artis went 6-for–8 in the second, driving to the basket for strong aggressive layups, and getting a big steal to give the Miners their run.
Omega Harris went four-for-seven in the second half to go along with Artis’ strong second half. Omega went on to knock down 3-out of-6 from beyond the 3-point range, finishing the game three-for- nine from behind the arc. These two guards made a strong stand to close out the game and were aggressive for the win at the Don. The Miners changed up their line up for defensive purposes as coach Floyd played all guards toward the pivotal moments of the game.
“We started to switch on defense when playing the screen and roll, you can’t do that with Hooper (Vint) and we decided with Tevin (Caldwell) we might be able to get squared up and put their bigs in a post up game, which isn’t what they wanted to do,” Floyd said.
The small guard play was the better move for the Miners on defense, which reflected on the eruption of Harris and Artis to go on their scoring run.
“My overall energy just wasn’t there (in the first half), I brought it later in the second half,” Artis said. “When I bring my energy, good things happen. Coach did jump into me in the second half.”
Harris attributed to the duo’s success from their defensive pursuit.
“We can speed teams up defensively,” Harris said. “We have guards that have got to play big for us and with no big men that’s just how its going. Coach was harsh saying we didn’t play too good in the first half, so we had to respond out there and pick it up in the second half.”
Sadler brings in the defense
Returning to his old school, ex-UTEP head coach and current Southern Mississippi coach Doc Sadler brought back his defensive strategies to the Don Haskins Center. In the first half, the Golden Eagles held the Miners to only 47 percent shooting from the floor and 27.8 percent from 3-point range. Southern Miss also opened up the second half with a surging 12-2 run in the first eight minutes.
D.A. & Omega ignite the offense late
Coming out of the half, Artis was 0-5 from the floor, 0-4 from beyond the arch with no points. With 11:03, Artis saw his first set of points on the board. Then, Artis and Harris exploded, racking in points for the Miners in the final stretch to lead a go-ahead run and stretch their lead. Artis and Harris combined for 70 percent of the Miners’ points in the second half.
Without the big men
With 7:30 remaining, coach Floyd decided to bench Hooper Vint and go small for the remainder of the game. Dominic Artis, Lee Moore, Omega Harris, Earvin Morris and Tevin Caldwell led the surge in the final stretch. Even though they were out-heighted, the Miners outrebounded the Golden Eagles 6-5 for the final seven minutes and 35-27 for the game. “That helped out a lot, playing small,” Lee Moore said. “They played small, so when we switched it was guard-on-guard. It was a good matchup.”
Onto the Bulldogs
Next, the Miners will have to tackle on the fourth place team in Conference USA, Louisiana Tech (19-6, 8-4 C-USA). In the last meeting, the Bulldogs scrapped away (78-70) in a battle. The Miners will defend their five-game winning streak against LA Tech, who has two of C-USA’s top ten scorers, Alex Hamilton (18.5 ppg) and Eric McCree (16.4 ppg).
Tip off against the Bulldogs will be at 4 p.m. in the Don Haskins. UTEP is playing for a first-round bye as the fourth seed in the conference tournament.
Christopher Piñones and Adrian Broaddus may be reached at [email protected]
