UTEP Women's Basketball: UTEP dismantles FIU 70-52 for 20th win of the season

UTEP led the entire game, and owned a plus-20 margin on the boards to easily dispatch FIU 70-52 Thursday night in the Don Haskins Center.

The Miners improve to 20-2 overall on the season with the win, and an 11-1 record in C-USA play.

Three Miners scored in double figures as Keitha Adams managed minutes with 14 girls seeing action.

And while UTEP wasn't very efficient on the offensive end, FIU struggled to take care of the ball against UTEP's elite defensive attack as four different Miners had at least two steals in the ball game.

A physical first quarter limited UTEP to a 6-of-20 start from the field with five turnovers, but UTEP dominated the boards with a 15-8 margin in the opening quarter to take a slim 15-11 lead after the first.

All year Keitha Adams' group uses a run fueled by defense, and transition buckets to give them distance on the scoreboard, and in the second quarter UTEP did just that, again.

FIU would go scoreless in the final 2:58 of the second quarter, as UTEP rolled off a 15-4 run in the final 5:51 of the first half to take a 35-19 lead into the halftime break.

UTEP out rebounded FIU 26-11, and forced 14 turnovers in the first twenty minutes to overcome a 36.1 shooting percentage from the field in the first half.

The strong play would continue well into second half for UTEP as a 10-2 run gave UTEP their largest lead of the game at 68-45 with 2:37 left in the fourth quarter.

Jenzel Nash scored 13 points to lead the Miners in scoring, she also had five steals, six rebounds, and four assists.

Cameasha Turner and Lawna Kennedy each added 11 points for UTEP who shot just 36.9 percent from the floor, and 3-of-17 from three point land in the game.

FIU shot 40 percent, but gave UTEP 27 points off turnovers, most coming on steals that lead to easy layups for the Miners which buried the Golden Panthers during UTEP's late second half run.

UTEP out rebounded FIU 49-29 in the game with 24 of those rebounds coming on the offensive end.  Chrishauna Parker grabbed nine rebounds, and Daeshianna McCants came off the bench to score seven points, and added six rebounds, five of which came on the offensive boards.

Shooting wise, it wasn't very pretty, but like they've done all year, the Miners shut down FIU's offensive flow with pesky pressure, and wiped the glass clean on both ends despite a rough shooting night.

The Miners will host a high octane offense in the FAU Owls on Saturday to finish up their two game home stand.