Southern Miss Knocks UTEP Out Of The C-USA Tournament
UTEP's kryptonite has proven to be Southern Miss who defeated the Miners 64-56 to advance to the semi finals of the Conference USA Tournament and will face Louisiana Tech.
The Golden Eagles have now beaten UTEP four times over the past two seasons, and to put it quite simply, they clearly have the Miners number. UTEP never really established an offensive rhythm in the game and struggled to keep up with Southern Miss and their confusing zone defense.
Julian Washburn led all scorers with 16 points, while Vince Hunter added 14, and John Bohannon contributed with 8 points. The Golden Eagles dominated the Miners on the glass, they ended up with 20 offensive rebounds to UTEP's 7. Overall Southern Miss outrebounded UTEP 45-28.
The Miners squandered numerous late opportunities to potentially pull within two points of Southern Miss, but simply couldn't make their shots down the stretch. Southern Miss out played UTEP and proved to be the better team on Thursday night. Their determination enabled them to advance in the C-USA Tournament.
As for the Miners, they finished their season with a respectable 23-10 record and will surely play in the post season, most likely in the NIT Tournament. They really have nothing to be ashamed of, this team weathered numerous storms this season and still won a lot more games then most people could have imagined. In the end, it is real difficult to lose in the C-USA Tournament on your home court, but all things considered fans will look back and remember this 2013-2014 team with fond memories.
Coach Floyd should have been named the C-USA coach of the year, and his team did one hell of a job considering what they went through this season. Sometimes victories aren't needed to show how much heart a team has, Miner fans should never forget this squad, their hearts fueled their success this season, and you can never put a big enough value on that.
Here is the complete post game press conference with Coach Floyd and Cedrick Lang.