The Mustangs can’t seem to get a streak going. The men’s basketball team hasn’t won back-to-back games since defeating Texas Pan-Am and Brown in early January, and SMU lost its third attempt at two straight wins again last night.
The Mustangs couldn’t evenstop a struggling Miner offense in its 85-56 loss. UTEP shot 24.6 percent from the floor in its loss to Tulsa during its last game. That number improved to 53 percent last night.
SMU never got going. An early 8-0 run for UTEP gave the Miners a 21-11 lead early in the first half. Later in the half, the Miners got another 8-0 run increasing their lead to 40-25.
“Story is, they had more energy than we did,” said head coach Matt Doherty. “We didn’t show much fight.”
Playing with a short bench (only seven scholarship players on the roster), early fouls hurt the Mustangs.
Donatas Rackauskas got into foul trouble early and sat on the bench for the final five minutes of the first half. That put Cameron Spencer in the game – and he got into foul trouble of his own.
Rackauskas fouled out with just under 13 minutes left in the game, and Spencer fouled out with just under eight minutes left.
Jon Killen played all 40 minutes and scored a career-high 20 points to lead the offense. Fifteen of Killen’s 20 points came in the first half. Helping Killen was Ike Ofoegbu, who scored 14 points and 10 rebounds for his fourth straight game with a double-double. He scored in double digits for the ninth straight game.
Dez Willingham, who scored 11 points, and Ofoegbu joined Killen playing all 40 minutes of the game. Derrick Roberts scored four points in 37 minutes.
But the short bench forced SMU to play zone against a strong perimeter shooting team. According to Doherty, playing man-to-man against that kind of offense would have been ideal, but would have taken too much energy out of the players.
The 29-point loss is the second-worst loss of the season for the Mustangs, who fell to Memphis by 36.
The Mustangs expect Devon Pearson, who’s been out for two games with a leg injury, to be back for Saturday’s game.
“We haven’t done well in games like this, in Houston in Memphis and now at UTEP,” said Doherty.
The road won’t get much easier for the Mustangs, who play Rice on Saturday in Houston. Rice defeated the Mustangs by three points two weeks ago.