Keith Clanton recorded a double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds and the UCF men’s basketball team upset Conference USA’s top team, UTEP, on Monday with a 74-68 victory.
The Knights (17-9 overall, 4-9 in C-USA) led by as many as 19 points in the first half and played arguibly their most complete game of the season, shooting just under 48 percent from the field for the game, en route to topping the Miners (20-7, 8-4). Marcus Jordan added 13 points and P.J. Gaynor chipped in 10 on 4-of-5 shooting.
The game against UTEP was the final game of a three-game road trip for UCF, one they came out of with a record of 2-1.
“I am so proud of our guys,” UCF head coach Donnie Jones said in a press release. “What these guys have been through on this road trip – three games in six days. We’ve had a few chances to win games, but shots were not falling for us. Today, shots went down. We worked the clock, and got the ball to the right people. I am really proud because we got the lead in this game, and when we had it, we never lost it, and that is a tough thing to do against a team as good as UTEP.”
UCF jumped all over UTEP in the first half, shooting 66.7 percent from the field en route to a 39-25 lead at the break. A pair of A.J. Rompza 3-pointers and seven points from Isaiah Sykes sparked the Knights during the period, helping them reel off a 23-8 run on the Miners to break the game open.
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Randy Culpepper nearly pulled the Miners back into the game in the second half. Culpepper, who led all scorers with 25 points, hit a jumper with 10:05 left in the game that pulled the Miners to within eight. UCF then answered back with an 8-0 run of their own, with Clanton scoring six points during that stretch to lead the team.
The game against UTEP was originally scheduled on Feb 2, but was moved to Monday due to a bad weather.
Without center Tom Herzog who was sitting out due to a concussion he suffered on Saturday, the Knights were still able to pull out the win and snap the Miners 15-game home winning streak.
“I thought it was the whole team effort,” said Rompza, who has recorded back-to-back double-figure scoring games. “We huddled up before the game, and I said `let’s play as a team today. Let’s have fun. Let’s share the ball. You can definitely tell that we did that today.”
