Bulldogs go back to roots in much-needed road win
Sean Isabella
sisabella@thenewsstar.com
Less than two weeks ago, Louisiana Tech coach Michael White admitted the 2015 Bulldogs were hardly a mirror image of the previous three squads he's coached in Ruston.
In Tech's first 12 games of the season, offense — not the usually gritty defense we're so used to seeing — led the way.
Well, the last three games, highlighted by Thursday's 58-45 win at UTEP, have featured Tech going back to its roots.
And it couldn't have come at a better time.
The Bulldogs (11-4, 2-0) held the Miners (10-5, 2-1) to just 12 second-half points in the biggest road win of the season for White. Tech had previously lost close games to Temple, Syracuse and North Carolina State.
"My goodness have we come a long way in the past couple months. I got a little emotional with our guys in the locker room," White said on his postgame radio show. "I'm just so proud of how hard they've worked. They've overcome a lot. We've had a lot of doubters. There's so many games left."
Tech and UTEP were knotted at 33-33 at halftime before the Bulldogs clamped down to improve to 2-0 in Conference USA, picking up their first win in El Paso, Texas, since 2002.
"These guys laid it on the line," White said. "I told them this is my fourth team here and this is the softest team of the four years, but tonight was the toughest performance we've had in four years."
For the third straight game, Tech out-rebounded its opponent, this time by a 36-34 margin. The Bulldogs also forced 13 turnovers and held the Miners to 5-of-23 shooting in the second half and without a single made field goal in the final 5:51.
More importantly, it was a team effort.
Michale Kyser, who was severely outweighed down low, pulled down nine rebounds. Erik McCree had six rebounds to go along with 13 points and even guards Raheem Appleby and Alex Hamilton chipped in with five and four rebounds, respectively.
"Not only did we get a ton of stops and finish them with rebounds," White said. "We were swarming to the basketball and really had hardly any miscues, especially the last 8 to 10 minutes."
Tech led 43-40 with 11:06 to play before stretching the lead to nine with 7:19 on the clock. UTEP put together its last-ditch effort to trim the lead to 49-44 with 5:51 left, but that signify the last time the Miners made a shot the rest of the game.
McCree and Appleby hit back-to-back clutch 3-pointers to extend the lead to 10 with 2:14 left and a jumper by Appleby with 1:25 left ended up being the dagger.
"We were locked in, boy. If we can do that every night defensively, we'd be hard to beat. That's what we're going to drive for," White said. "This isn't our ceiling. Obviously this was a big win for us, really big, for this team, this program. UTEP is a hard place to play at."