With another tough loss, this one coming at the hands of Rice University. Utep is now looking at a must win game if they wanna make it into the Conference USA tournament. An owl loss in San Antonio on Saturday would also help The Miners.

Picture from http://www.elpasotimes.com/

If you look at the stat sheet for this game, you would think UTEP would have been the team coming out on top tonight. But tonight’s stats are a little deceiving. Thou Utep shot 75% at the line tonight, compared to Rice 64%. The difference, the owls took 25 free throws compared to the Miners 8 shots at the line.

Rice also had the advantage in every rebounding category. Offensive rebounds 12-9, defensive rebounds 30-24 and total rebounds 42-33. The Owls definitely won the battle on the boards. Rice also had a key win in the stat sheet tonight, second chance points with 16 to the Miners 8.

The big difference, Utep played with the lead for only 12 minutes, most of these coming at the beginning of the game. The Owls never looked back after that, with only 1 lead change, Rice lead the game for 26 minutes.

The Miners have a win or go home game Saturday at UNT Coliseum in Denton, Tx. Start time set for 4pm