UTEP men’s basketball team to play three straight games on the road
he UTEP basketball team has fared much better in Conference USA away games than home games over the last couple years. The Miners’ road mettle will be tested when they embark on a string of three straight contests away from El Paso, beginning on Saturday at UTSA (1 p.m. MT).
The game will be televised on the American Sports Network and will be available in the El Paso area on KFOX-TV.
The Miners are 7-6 in their last 13 home games versus C-USA opponents. They are 11-1 versus C-USA foes on the road during the same span.
UTEP (11-5, 3-1 C-USA) got back on the winning track at home last Saturday versus Southern Miss, dominating from start to finish in a 74-40 victory. It erased at least of the sting of a 58-45 loss to preseason league favorite Louisiana Tech two days earlier.
“It seems like we play better when the ball goes inside, we touch it inside and it moves around a little bit,” UTEP coachTim Floydsaid. “We take care of it better, we tend to get our big guys involved where they want to rebound and defend and do everything else that little guys don’t do, like screen. They need to touch it and we got it in their hands, shot for a better percentage, got fouled a little more and played better.”
Now the Miners will face UTSA, Western Kentucky (Jan. 22) and Marshall (Jan. 24) in succession and won’t play another home game until Jan. 29. Five of UTEP’s first seven C-USA games are on the road. The tradeoff is that the Miners will be home for five of their final seven league contests starting on Feb. 12.
“I’d prefer to finish up the way we are with a lot of games at home,” Floyd said. “If we can get [road] wins, it’s a great thing. If you don’t, then you’ve got to go recover and play well at home. Every time you go on the road, it’s a challenge. We all know that. Our team has been pretty good on the road so hopefully we’ll play well.
“We need to take advantage of what I call opportunities on the road. They’re a chance to grow your team.”
With a win over UTSA, UTEP could square its all-time C-USA road mark at 37-37. The Miners would be at .500 in C-USA road games for the first time since January of 2007 when they were 5-5 following a 73-67 loss at Rice. UTEP proceeded to lose its next 10 C-USA road games and 12 of its next 13.
The Roadrunners (8-7, 2-2 C-USA) took a step out of league play on Monday and thumped UT Pan American, 68-43, in Edinburg, Texas.
UTSA is 2-2 in C-USA action with wins over North Texas (71-61) and Southern Miss (77-57), and losses to Rice (67-52) and Louisiana Tech (84-72). The Roadrunners are 4-4 at home, 1-1 in league games.
UTSA has gotten a boost from the return of senior forward Jerome Hill, who missed all of last season with a knee injury. The 6-8, 250-pound Australia native is averaging 15.9 points and 7.1 rebounds. Hill has scored 1,433 points with 705 rebounds in his career, totals which rank fifth and fourth respectively in school history. He is on pace to join Devin Brown as the only players in school history to tally 1,500 points and 700 boards. Hill is fourth in C-USA in rebounding and sixth in scoring.
The Roadrunners average 72.7 points as a team with senior guard Keon Lewis (14.6 ppg), junior guard Ryan Bowie (13.9 ppg) and senior center Kaj-Bjorn Sherman (10.5 ppg) all averaging better than 10 points per contest.
UTSA is second in C-USA in steals (7.7 spg) and turnover margin (+2.36), fourth in scoring offense (73.1 ppg), and fifth in free throw percentage (.690) and rebound margin (+1.8 rpg).
“UTSA seems to be playing much better than they did a year ago. They’ve already achieved the number of wins that they had last season,” Floyd said. “They have many guys who can score the basketball. Their two big guys, 7-0 and 6-8, take up a lot of room inside and are scoring the basketball. They’re going to force us to do things defensively that we haven’t had to do to this point of the season.”
