UTEP Miners men's basketball goes cold, falls to Loyola Marymount

The UTEP men's basketball team's first loss of the season, a 71-58 setback to a favored Loyola Marymount team, was simple to explain.

In the first half, the Miners made their shots, forced a raft of Lion turnovers and took a four-point lead to intermission. In the second half those same shots quit falling, a Loyola Marymount team that came in averaging more than 100 points per game was better at valuing the basketball and UTEP fell short in its first test of the season.

UTEP started the second half in a 4-for-18 shooting slump, the Lions began it on a 9-0 run that kept growing and by the time the Miners finally heated back up the game had gotten away from them. The Lions won the second half 37-20.

UTEP opened the game by making 5-of-6 3-pointers, then made 4-of-15 the rest of the way.