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UTEP
No. 21/24 UTEP Defeats Marshall 80-76
3/2/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 2, 2010
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. -No. 21/24 UTEP (23-5, 14-1 C-USA) defeated Marshall (22-8, 10-5 C-USA) 80-76 Mar. 2 in the Henderson Center. Randy Culpepper and Derrick Caracter combined for 50 points to lead the Miners. Culpepper scored 32 while Caracter posted 10-of the last 16 UTEP points on his way to 18 on the night. Marshall's Tyler Wilkerson scored 22 points and grabbed 16 rebounds while frontcourt mate Hassan Whiteside scored 20 points, hauled in 14 boards, and blocked six shots.
Marshall took its biggest lead of the game,36-26, with 45 seconds remaining in the first half. A Culpepper three at the first half buzzer followed by nine straight to begin the second half that keyed a 14-2 UTEP run that took the Miners from seven down to the lead. UTEP led by 11 with 9:31 remaining before the Herd mounted 14-2 in which Whiteside scored five points that gave MU a 65-64 lead with 5:39 remaining. A Damier Pitts three-point field goal with 4:01 remaining gave the Herd a 72-68 advantage, but UTEP scored on their next two possessions to tie the score for the third time in the game.
The exchanged baskets before Wilkerson tied the game 76-76 with 46 seconds remaining when he sank a pair of free throws. UTEP fed the ball into Caracter and he responded with a layup 10 seconds later. Marshall did not call timeout and worked the ball into Wilkerson with eight seconds remaining. His jumper fell short, Shaquille Johnson attempted to grab the rebound and call timeout going out of bounds, but the timeout wasn't granted, giving UTEP the ball. The Miners called timeout. Caracter threw a long inbounds pass to Culpepper who worked five seconds off the clock before he was fouled. Culpepper made both of his free throws for what proved to be the final 80-76 score.
UTEP's Claude Britten had 14 coming off the bench for the Miners who were outrebounded by the Herd 50-35. UTEP went 20-of-35 (57.1%) in the second half to shoot 45.6% (31-of-68) for the game. Wilkerson went 10-for-12 from the free throw line as the Herd were 18-of-24 (75%) from the charity stripe. Marshall shot 38.8% (26-of-67) from the field.
"Obviously I wanted to come out with the win," Wilkerson said. "I would like to say thanks to all the fans. They came out and supported us, but we couldn't come out with the victory. I am going to miss the Herd, and hopefully they are going to miss me. But we have to move on to bigger and better things, the tournament is right around the corner."
"I guess we have had this meeting before when we were right there at the end," said Marshall head coach Donnie Jones. "We have won some of those games, but first of all, give UTEP credit. They are a very good basketball team. We made some plays down the stretch and were right there, but you have to make all the plays and get stops. That is what happens when you play against very good basketball teams, there is not a lot of room for error. We got down 11, rallied back and got back into the game. The shots and plays UTEP was making, you could see (why) they have two of the better players in this league. Derrick Caracter is very tough, and the way (Randy) Culpepper was shooting the ball made it tough to double off him and give him wide open three's. So we got caught in 1-on-1 situations, which has worked for us most of the year with Hassan in there, he is a tough guy to score on, but Character did a great job."
The Thundering Herd close out the regular season Saturday at SMU. Tip is set for 8 p.m. (EST).
NOTES
The victory clinched the first outright regular season title for UTEP since joining Conference USA...UTEP was the first ranked team other than Memphis to appear in the Henderson Center since Jan. 7, 2006 when then No. 20 George Washington defeated the Herd 79-73...Marshall has lost to all three of its ranked opponents (No. 10 North Carolina Dec. 22, 2009/No. 11 West Virginia Jan. 20, 2010/and UTEP) this season...Whiteside has played 84 of a possible 95 minutes over the last two games for the Herd...He raised his school and Conference USA blocked shots total to 165, the 11th most in a season by a Division I player...Wilkerson is now 29 points away from scoring 1,000 in his career (971)...Chris Lutz, Darryl Merthie, and Wilkerson were honored before the game as it was Senior Night at Marshall...Merthie started in place of Damier Pitts and scored six points...Lutz had five in his final regular season appearance in the Henderson Center.
