UTEP men’s basketball begins 2-game road trip Thursday

The Miners (11-6, 1-1 C-USA) will play at Middle Tennessee on Thursday and at UAB on Saturday.

Those opponents have a combined 22-9 this year and are 17-1 on their home courts this year.

Middle Tennessee was 28-6 last season, 19-1 in the Sun Belt and merited an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, where it dropped a 67-54 decision to Saint Mary’s. The Blue Raiders returned eight lettermen and two starters from that squad. Middle Tennessee is 11-5 thus far in 2013-14 and 1-0 in C-USA with an 89-84 overtime victory over UAB at the Murphy Center on Saturday.

“They’re probably the most physical team in our league,” UTEP coach Tim Floyd said. “They are very versatile, which we are not right now. We’re just going to try to go in and give ourselves a chance to win. That’s the challenge we have with three scholarship perimeter players. We’d like to shoot the ball better than we have and continue to rebound it like we have rebounded it.”