Liberty Struggles, UTEP Wins 67-51 (3-2-24)
By: Ty Tracy
All Photo Credit: Emma Kendrick-Liberty Athletics
The Liberty Flames square off against the UTEP Miners on Saturday night. The Flames coming off a Thursday night home victory against New Mexico St 83-58 and looking to get their second win for the night before conference play starts. The Flames had a ten to nine lead in the first four minutes in the first half until the Miners went on a 15 to 0 run that changed the lead to 30 to 13 while the Flames scored only one three-pointer and then later on trimmed the lead down to 35 to 23 at the end of the first half. The Miners were giving the Flames in the first in turnovers as they forced the Flames 9 turnovers and scored 11 points off the turnovers during the first half.
Right when the second half began the Miners were off to a quick 8-0 run making it their largest lead in the game as they were up 43-23 in the first few minutes of the second half. Then the Flames found a quick spark to change the momentum in the game when they went on a 12-0 run cutting the lead down from a 20-point deficit to an 8-point game. But the Miners made some real clutch difficult shots while the Flames almost had the UTEP Miners up on their heels during that 12-0 run that the Flames created. Then a few minutes later the UTEP Miners went on an 8 to 0 run to create a double-figured game for the rest of the game for the Flames. The Miners’ defense was too much for the Flames as they were continuing forcing turnovers as they forced eight turnovers in the second half creating a total of 17 turnovers the entire and 23 points off of turnovers in the second half. The 17 Turnovers were Liberty season high turnover this season, but the third most during the season. The Miners won the boards, 29-26, with Frazier III leading the way with seven caroms. Unlike the home side, UTEP took care of the ball with 10 turnovers.
UTEP Miners Head Coach Joe Golding gave a lot of praise to his players and their performances on the defensive side of the ball saying “I was proud of our guys, our defensive effort was tremendous tonight,” and “I have so much respect for Coach McKay with what they do offensively. Their scheme is one of the best in the country. Tonight, we wanted to get after them defensively. We wanted to trap them, we wanted to pressure them. We had a quick turnaround. We didn’t have a whole lot of prep. I thought our guys were terrific. They had that one run in the second half where we didn’t rotate, but besides that, I thought our defensive effort was tremendous. Then offensively, we executed. We took advantage of the match-ups we wanted.” Liberty Flames Head Coach Ritchie McKay commented on the game and UTEP saying, “UTEP played fantastically tonight. I think we helped them a little bit, but I don’t want to take anything away from them. They were really good. Hats off to them for being able to execute their game plan and coming out with a W in our arena, which is hard to do historically, especially when you have a nice crowd like that.” UTEP guards Zid Powell and Corey Camper Jr lead the Miners with a combined of 40 points while Liberty’s Kaden Metheny lead the Flames with 15 points.
The Liberty Flames will be on the road Tuesday to take on Middle Tennessee then Western Kentucky at home Saturday for the last final game of the regular season.
