UTEP men's basketball beats Cal at the buzzer on Tae Hardy 3
In the first four games of the season, the UTEP men's basketball team established itself as a tough, smart group with a high gear and a big ceiling.
In the fifth game, the Miners showed they can travel and showed a sense of the moment.
Tae Hardy, whose two missed free throws with 16 seconds to go opened the door for a game-tying Cal 3-pointer, rimmed in a buzzer-beating 3 of his own that rolled all the way around the rim before dropping in after the final horn.
His 16th point gave the Miners a 75-72 win that moved their record to 5-0 and triggered a dogpile on the court at The Pavilion at JSerra that concluded at 1:40 a.m. MT. UTEP earned a title game date with Bradley on Wednesday night.
What UTEP basketball said
"What a game," coach Joe Golding said. "We were out of whack it seems like the whole game. We were shorthanded, we got in foul trouble. We had different lineups on the floor, we had guys in for the first time.
"There were so many things on that last play. We talk to these guys about trust, belief, culture. When Cone hits it the easy thing to do is bad body language. Otis grabs it out of the net, finds Zid. Zid takes two or three dribbles, everybody wants to be a hero, it's easy for Zid to drive it or shoot it.
"He doesn't, he makes the right pass, hits Tae who was sprinting down the floor and the shot goes in. That sums up everything we've been talking about. You get wins like this, tough, gritty wins, the belief starts to happen."
UTEP won despite shooting 38% because they made free throws (except for two at the end), locked down on defense and saw their best player be their best player with everything on the line.
The Miners finished with five players in double figures, including Hardy's 16, 13 from Zid Powell and Calvin Solomon, 11 from Corey Camper and 10 from Otis Frazier. Five players, including three from Cal, fouled out and there were five technical fouls called.
Dig Deeper Five bold predictions, including how many games will UTEP men win this year?
UTEP led almost the entire final nine minutes until Cal tied the game with six seconds remaining with Jalen Cone's contested 3-pointer. That came 10 seconds after Hardy, who was 7-of-7 from the free-throw line, missed two free throws to drop the Miners to 30-of-37 for the game from the line.
After the tying basket, Powell took the inbounds, scrambled up court and found a spotting-up Hardy. Hardy's shot found every inch of the rim, then dropped to break the game's seventh tie.
There were 10 lead changes, the final with 9:58 to go on a Kevin Kalu three-point play. The Miners grew the lead to 71-63 before a 9-1 Cal run that briefly tied the game.
UTEP forced 21 Cal turnovers and won second-chance points 20-13.
Up next for UTEP Miners
The Miners play Bradley on Wednesday for the championship of the Sand Division of the SoCal Classic. That game tips at 7:30 p.m. on CBS Sports Network and 600 ESPN El Paso.
Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: UTEP Miners basketball beats Cal at SoCal Classic
