A Rough Day for UTEP Basketball at the C-USA Tournament

The Ides of March were unkind to UTEP basketball.  Both the men and women fell in the semifinals at the C-USA Tournament today.

The women tipped of at 9 a.m. against eighth seeded UCF.  The Miners took a 43-40 lead to halftime, but the Miners gave up 49 in the second half and lost 89-77.  The turning point of the game took place with 17:27 to play.  Leading 47-44, Anete Steinberga picked up her 3rd foul and was forced to become spectator.  UCF peeled off a 12-0 run and never looked back.  Junior Kayla Thornton netted her 1,000th point as a Miner in the loss.  The women are hoping to earn an invite to the women's N.I.T.

The men got routed by Southern Miss 85-67, a far cry from last month's 45-39 slugfest in Hattiesburg.  The two teams traded punches early on, but Julian Washburn picked up his third foul at the 9:35 mark of the first half, and Southern Miss took advantage.  Dwayne Davis torched Miner defenders on his way to a game high 27 points.  Southern Miss shot 58.5% from the field and 6-14 from long distance.

Coach Floyd had this to say after the loss:

“They are a good basketball team.  They’ve got good guards.  Davis has been playing at a high level.  I thought a key stretch in the game was when Julian picked up his third foul.  We had the guy we wanted guarding Davis at that point.  We sat him for the next nine minutes and the game got away from us.  Julian means an awful lot to our team.”

UTEP now has an outside shot at an N.I.T. invite, but this was likely it for the 2012-2013 season.