The Collegian
Friday, March 29, 2024

Richmond falls to UTEP in semifinal of CBI

University of Richmond men's basketball coach Chris Mooney was not around to see the end of his team's season as the Spiders fell 81-69 to the University of Texas at El-Paso in the semifinal of the College Basketball Invitational.

Mooney was ejected with 4:44 left in the game after he received his second technical foul.

"I apologized to the team because that shouldn't happen," Mooney said. "I don't really know [why the second foul was called] to be honest. The second one I didn't say anything. I think it is probably more cumulative, if I'm asking for too many calls. But I certainly didn't swear or raise my voice."

Mooney was given that technical after he waved off one of the referees after a personal foul was called on senior Jarhon Giddings.

The Miners were led by UTEP's and Conference USA's all-time leading scorer, Stefon Jackson. The senior scored 18 points during the first half and finished with 34.

"He's really good," junior David Gonzalvez said. "We knew that he was better going to his right. We just didn't do a good enough job cutting him off. That kid can play."

Jackson was 10-21 from the field and 14-16 from the free-throw line. He teamed up with sophomore Randy Culpepper to score 53 of UTEP's points. The two came into the game averaging a combined 41 points per game.

Richmond had only two leads during the game, and both were by only one point early on during the game. The first lead came two minutes into the game when Giddings hit a three-pointer. That 3-2 lead lasted just over one minute as Jackson made a jump shot to give the Miners a 4-3 lead.

Richmond was able to tie and regain the slim lead when sophomore Justin Harper hit a pair of free throws. Sophomore Gabriel McCulley hit a 3-pointer only seven seconds later to give UTEP the lead for good.

The Miners had a seven-point lead with 10 minutes remaining during the game after Culpepper stole the ball and dunked it for a 58-51 UTEP lead. Richmond then went on a 5-0 run to cut the UTEP lead to two after junior Ryan Butler hit an under-hand layup. That would be as close as the Spiders would get as the Miners went on a 10-0 run to regain control of the game.

"We turned the ball over a few times," Gonzalvez said. "That slowed us down. We had a lot of momentum at that point and were making some good shots. That was a good call [by UTEP] going to that zone with 5:50 left to go. That stunted us a little bit. We didn't get the ball inside enough of that zone. We just didn't get open shots."

This was the first ever meeting between these two schools.

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UTEP will face the winner of the Oregon State University-Stanford University semifinal game. The championship game will be a best-of-three series to determine the CBI champion.

Gonzalvez led the team on offense, scoring 24 points. Giddings had 10 points and eight rebounds during the final game of his career. Even though Giddings will not be a part of the team next year, the captain addressed the team in the locker room after the loss and gave advice on what the team had to do to be successful next year.

"Jarhon was telling us that we always talk about trying to grow up," Gonzalvez said. "This team has to grow up and we are really young and have to mature a little bit. He was saying that we are grown now. Next year has to be the year where everyone expects to make it into the postseason for us to be playing at this time of year. The CBI is a good tournament, there were some really good teams in it. But at the same time, we want to make the NCAA tournament."

Contact staff writer Andrew Prezioso at andrew.prezioso@richmond.edu

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