Miners top East Carolina behind Bohannon's double-double

Following a tightly contested first half, UTEP used two 9-0 runs to pull away beat East Carolina 70-56 Jan. 18 at the Don Haskins Center.

The Miners dominated the Pirates in the paint scoring 40-12, while capitalizing on second chance points scoring 13 of them.

 "We picked our defensive intensity. We beat them by 20 rebounds. We won this game by boarding and defense," freshman Julian Washburn said.

The Miners outrebounded the Pirates 39-19. The last time UTEP outrebounded a team by plus 20 rebounds was Dec. 29, 2007 against Texas Southern. Sophomore center John Bohannon led all scorers with 17 points and tied his career high with 14 rebounds. Bohannon had 10 of the team's first 14 points of the game.

"My teammates did a good job of finding me early and I think I did good just trying to go get every board tonight," Bohannon said. "Rebounding is just wanting to you just got to go get it that's all rebounding is."

"It was a team effort. (Junior guard Jacques) Streeter came out and gave us a lot of energy on (junior guard) Miguel Paul. It was just a team effort defensive wise," senior forward Gabriel McCulley said.

The Miners had four players in double digits. Gabriel McCulley finished with 16 points and seven boards, sophomore guard Michael Perez finished with 10 points and freshmen guard Julian Washburn finished with 12 points and closed the game with a crowd roaring, reverse tomahawk alley-oop from Streeter.

"It was a bad oop and I just did something with it. It wasn't meant to be behind me but I made something of the alley-oop. Something just made me dunk it that way," Washburn said.

The first half was a close game despite the Miners dominating statistically due to East Carolina's success with 3-pointers. The Pirates made 6 of their 13 attempted threes during the first half. They attempted a total of 29 to end the game. The Miners shot 71.4 percent in the first half and only found themselves up by four, 36-32.

"The difference became our ability to take away their three's and get to the foul line because we had an inside emphasis on this game," head coach Tim Floyd said. "It was a good win and now we got to go do it all over again on the road. We haven't been quite as snappy on the road and the rebounding hasn't been quite the same."

The Miners have yet to win on the road and all their wins have come playing at home in the Don Haskins Center. The Miners will begin a three-game road swing to face Tulane Jan. 21 in New Orleans.

"We don't know much about Tulane because we haven't scouted their offense," Washburn said. "All we know is they are a good defensive team. We got to get a road win, but I feel this next game is the one we are going to get."

Frankie Rodriguez may be reached at prospector@utep.edu.