Make it 11 consecutive wins.
The UTEP men’s basketball team continued its winning ways Wednesday night with a 59-56 win against Southern Miss in Hattiesburg, Miss.
Derrick Caracter and Randy Culpepper were once again big for the Miners. Each player collected 17 points.
UTEP got off to a stunningly slow start and even went into halftime down by a point. But the Miners exploded offensively in the second half, taking a double-digit lead and doing enough to hold off the Eagles in a wild final minute for the win.
UTEP remains atop Conference USA. And with Houston’s upset of Memphis on Wednesday night, a delightful scenario is presented.
Win two of the next three games and the Miners own the Conference USA regular season title.
One win makes things tricky, but, the Miners can potentially get only one win during their remaining three games and still clinch the regular season crown.
It would help if that one win was against UAB or Marshall.
Explanation:
Memphis and UAB are behind UTEP with three conference losses each (the Tigers are, for now, the official second-place team by virtue of their win over UAB on Feb. 3). Both teams will face each other next Wednesday in Birmingham in what could be a de facto playoff for the No. 2 seed in the conference tournament.
Here are the possibilities:
If Memphis wins out and UTEP loses two of its next three, it means UAB will have four conference losses and UTEP will be even with Memphis but own the head-to-head tiebreaker.
If UAB wins out and UTEP loses two of its next three (and one of those is to the Blazers), it means Memphis will have four conference losses and the Miners and Blazers will have split their series.
According to Conference USA, the first tiebreaker is head-to-head, which would be null in this situation. The second tiebreaker is each team’s record against the team with the highest winning percentage in the final regular season standings (or in the case of a tie for the championship, the next highest winning percentage in the regular season standings) continuing down through the standings until one team gains an advantage.
That essentially means the title will be decided by both teams’ record against the next conference team in line in the overall standings. That likely will be Memphis (20-8) or Marshall (21-7).
UTEP has a higher winning PERCENTAGE against Memphis (1-0) this season then UAB (1-1, with the scenario of UAB beating Memphis and winning out).
Should the Miners beat Marshall next Wednesday, they’ll have a higher winning percentage (1-0) then the Blazers (1-1)
Confused yet? I sorta am, too. Here’s hoping the Miners put it away with two wins and set up a finale in El Paso against UAB on March 6 that’ll be more monstrous than the Monster Jam truck show that’ll be in the Sun Bowl that same night.
Conference USA standings (updated Feb. 24)
School Conf. (W-L) All (W-L)
UTEP 12-1 21-5
Memphis 10-3 20-8
UAB 10-3 22-5
Marshall 9-4 21-7
Tulsa 8-5 19-8
Southern Miss. 6-7 16-11
Houston 6-7 14-13
SMU 6-7 13-14
UCF 5-8 13-14
East Carolina 3-10 9-18
Tulane 2-11 7-19
Rice 1-12 8-19
Wednesday’s other C-USA games
UAB 53, UCF 49
SMU 59, East Carolina 54
Houston 92, Memphis 75
Marshall 77, Rice 54
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