By Kyle Roberts

Sports Writer

The Bulldog Basketball team (15-15) finished its season by losing to the University of Texas-El Paso Miners (24-8) in the second round of the Western Athletic Conference Tournament in Fresno, Ca., on March 11 by a final score of 62-55.

"We had a lot of problems guarding UTEP," head coach Keith Richard said. "UTEP is one of the quickest and fastest teams in the league."

The Miners used their speed on both sides of the ball to hold Tech's offense to a 35.7 shooting percentage for the game and were able to outscore the Bulldogs 42-30 in the first half.

"We couldn't stop their offense, and defensively, they were pressuring us," Richard said. "Their quickness was really bothering us."

The Bulldogs rallied in the second half after trailing 59-50 with 4:05 left in the game to bring the score within four points but still came up short in the end.

"In the second half, we stuck with a zone defense and hoped they would start missing some shots and that their quickness wouldn't be as much of an asset to them, and that's what happened," Richard said. "They started to become tentative against the zone, and we didn't see their quickness as much. That helped us claw back into the game. They were still a problem on our offensive end because they pressured us all over the floor."

WAC Freshman of the Year Paul Millsap finished with his twentieth double-double and led the Bulldogs with 16 points and 12 rebounds and was followed by junior Donell Allick with 12 points and junior JueMichael Young with 11 points and six rebounds.

The loss came two days after Tech beat the San Jose State Spartans (6-23) 57-51 to win its first WAC tournament game since entering the conference.

"The San Jose State game was one of the hardest fought games by both teams in our whole season," Richard said. "Neither team played particularly well offensively but both teams played extremely well and hard defensively."

The Spartans outshot the Bulldogs with a 47.7 shooting percentage, while Tech only shot 38.1 percent from the floor.

"We got in an early hole but fought our way back at halftime," Richard said. "In the second half we got a big lead, but then they clawed their way back. It became a close game in the end, and we were able to make enough plays offensively to win the game."

Allick led Tech with 18 points while Millsap put up another double-double with 16 points and 18 rebounds.

"It was an extremely gratifying victory for our first conference tournament win," Richard said. "It was a great experience for this group of players."

Richard said he is very proud of this year's team and is excited about the future of the program by returning all five starters.

"This may have been my proudest year in my six years as a head coach," Richard said. "We had to replace five starters, and we had a lot of inexperience. For this team to grind out 15 wins, that's a tremendous feat.

"As we move to next year, we are excited about the fact that we gained all the experience that we need, and we're going to work really hard to improve each one of our returners' particular games for next season."