Men’s Basketball: Southern Miss beats UTEP 85-75 Thursday night

The UTEP men’s basketball team fell to 6-9 overall and 1-2 in Conference USA play after losing at Southern Miss, 85-75, Thursday night.

It was only the second true road game of the season for the Miners, whose only other true road contest came at New Mexico State in late November.

UTEP’s Paul Thomas scored the first basket of the game, but it was an uphill climb the rest of the way after Southern Miss answered with eight straight points.

The Miners found themselves down by 11 at the half, and then down by 23 midway through the second half.

UTEP was unable to capitalize on a great day shooting the three (UTEP was 11-20 from downtown). They committed 17 turnovers to just 9 committed by Southern Miss.

Isiah Osborne led the Miners with 17 points on 6-10 shooting from the field while three other Miners scored in double digits (Omega Harris – 11, Matt Willms – 11, Trey Touchet – 10).

However, UTEP was unable to slow down Dominic Magee of Southern Miss who led all scorers with 21 points to help the Golden Eagles pick up their first conference win of the season.

Southern Miss, which is led by former UTEP coach Doc Sadler, improved to 8-8 overall with the victory.

The Miners will next play at Louisiana Tech on Saturday, hoping to avoid falling to 1-3 in conference play.