In front of the biggest home opening crowd in over six years, the UTEP Miners Men’s Basketball team got their 2021-22 season off to a good start by beating the Western New Mexico Mustangs 85-57 at the Don Haskins Center on Tuesday night.
The Miners were lead by Jamal Bieniemy as he scored 23 points and had a career high five 3-pointers. Keonte Kennedy scored 11 points, Jorell Saterfield scored nine points off the bench and Bonke Maring had 8 points.
The Miner defense was too much for WNSU to handle as they put pressure on them all night long and their offense was in sync as they went on a 16 point scoring run in the first half that gave them the lead that they would never give up the rest of the night.
The win was the first for new UTEP Coach Joe Golding, The Miners have now won 10 straight and 56 of the past 61 season openers.
Here’s what Coach Golding had to say after the game:
UTEP returns to action when it heads up I-10 to battle longtime rival NM State at 7 p.m. MT this Saturday. The game can be heard on the UTEP Miners App