HUNTSVILLE, Alabama (KTSM) – The UTEP men’s basketball team suffered a 78-71 loss to Western Kentucky in the Conference USA Tournament championship game at Propst Arena on Saturday night.
With the win, Western Kentucky collected the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. WKU is heading to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013.
Western Kentucky’s Don McHenry scored 25 points on 9-of-16 shooting from the floor to lead the Hilltoppers to victory. Brandon Newman scored 15 points and Khristian Lander added 11 for Western Kentucky. Babacar Faye grabbed 10 rebounds to go with nine points, three blocks and three steals.
As for UTEP, its NCAA Tournament drought will continue as it fell to WKU in the CUSA Tournament final. UTEP’s last appearance in the NCAA Tournament was 2010. At that time the Miners were led by Tony Barbee as head coach and had standout players like Randy Culpepper, Derrick Caracter, Julyan Stone, and Arnett Moultrie on the squad.
UTEP was led by Zid Powell as he scored 21 points and hit four three-pointers. Otis Frazier III and Tae Hardy contributed 11 points each.
After going into halftime down 40-36, UTEP opened up the second half with a 13-4 run to put the Miners up 55-41 – its biggest lead in the entire contest – with 14:45 to go.
After a Corey Camper Jr. layup that put UTEP up 53-47 with 13:46 to go, UTEP missed its next eight shots. During that span, WKU outscored UTEP 12-0 to build a 60-53 lead with 8:49 left in the contest.
UTEP then got as close as five points but trailed the rest of the way.
It wasn’t the result UTEP wanted to end its 2023-24 season, but UTEP head coach Joe Golding believes the opportunity to play for a conference tournament championship was a step in the right direction for the program as it wrapped up its third year under the direction of Golding.
“This fan base has been splintered for about the last decade in my opinion. What I think this team did the last three days is they united this fan base. They united UTEP basketball and that’s exactly what had to happen to get this program back to where it belongs,” UTEP men’s basketball head coach Joe Golding said. “People are proud tonight to wear UTEP basketball around the country. People in El Paso are proud of these guys and that’s going to help us moving forward, that’s going to help us in recruiting, that’s going to help us NIL.”
The last time UTEP played in the Conference USA Tournament final was in 2011.
“We had a lot of chances to give up this year,” UTEP senior guard Tae Hardy said. “There was a lot of times where we went through adversity and we could have easily given up, but we kept fighting and we got to where we needed to be. Hopefully this just shows the way for the players that’s going to be here next year.”
“I’m kind of mad right now. I hate losing, but these last couple of weeks with the team, I know that we all got closer,” UTEP senior guard Zid Powell said. “We are going to be in each other’s lives for life. I am just happy to say I played for UTEP. I feel like I made the right decision to come here.”
UTEP ends its 2023-24 season with a 18-16 record and a fifth-place finish in the league standings after a 7-9 campaign in CUSA play.
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