Bulldogs use late run to down Miners

EL PASO, Texas – Louisiana Tech used tenacious defense and timely free throws to help go on a 10-0 run late in the game and hand UTEP its first home loss of the season, winning 64-61 on Saturday night in front of 5,731 inside the Don Haskins Center.

LA Tech (12-4, 3-1 C-USA) was trailing by its largest deficit at 61-54 with 3:19 to go, but the Bulldogs stuck together through a lot of adversity and pulled out their league-leading fourth road win of the season.

“I am so proud of this team,” said head coach Eric Konkol. “Things are easy when they are going well. It is easy to move on and feel good about things when they are going well, but when they aren’t going well, you have to be tougher, together. This was an absolute example of that.

“It was the real will of this group, from the guys cheering on the guys to the guys on the floor, that got us this win. We felt like our only way to beat them was with speed. UTEP is big, strong and explosive and we just really tried to pressure them. We needed our defense to spark our offense and it did.”

The Bulldogs were in control for the most part throughout the first half, holding a 34-28 advantage at intermission. They came out strong to start the second stanza as well, scoring the first four points of the game to grab their largest lead at 38-28 with 19:13 to go.

All of sudden the Miners, who came into the game 9-0 at home, started doing something that they don’t normally do and that is shoot a lot of threes. And they hit three big ones during a massive 17-1 run to give them a 48-41 edge midway through the second half.

LA Tech stopped the momentum, and even took a brief lead before UTEP (10-7, 1-3 C-USA) went on a 9-1 run this time to grab another seven-point advantage.

However, the final three-plus minutes all belonged to the ‘Dogs. Playing very small, Derric Jean got the first bucket with a driving reverse layup. Then came two big defensive rebounds by Mubarak Muhammed as well as a lay-in to cut the deficit down to three.

The freshman Cobe Williams, playing in place of DaQuan Bracey who was cramping late, followed with two clutch free throws to slice it down to one with 1:38 left.

Despite a turnover by the Bulldogs, Williams came up with a critical steal that led to a fast-break layup by Jean to put the visiting team in front with 20 seconds to go. After a timeout by UTEP, the defensive pressure continued as Archibald stole the ball and followed that up with two more big free throws to make it a three-point lead.

And it was fitting that LA Tech registered another steal, this one again from Williams, which didn’t allow the Miners to try for a game-tying three-pointer after they had already missed one and got their own rebound.

“Cobe played 24 big minutes for us and he was in for much of the last 10 minutes,” said Konkol. “We went really small with him on the floor. And when DayDay cramped there late, we went with JaColby Pemberton and he made some really key plays.”

LA Tech ended up forcing 17 turnovers (+7 turnover margin) and turned those into 24 points. The team shot 42 percent from the field, making only four threes, but they went 16-of-22 from the foul line.

Archibald (14), Jean (13) and Bracey (12) were the three Bulldogs in double figures. Muhammed had eight points and a game-high 13 rebounds and Isaiah Crawford recorded eight prior to going out of the game due to injury.

UTEP was held to 38 percent shooting for the game, making seven threes and getting a good chunk of its scoring from the charity stripe where they went 20-of-23. Bryson Williams led the Miners in scoring with 17.

LA Tech now has two conference road wins while the rest of the league has four total. They return to action on Thursday, Jan. 16 when they host Rice inside the Thomas Assembly Center at 6:30 p.m. on ESPN+.

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