UTEP Miners at Kansas Jayhawks

No. 2 Kansas rebounds to down UTEP in Bahamas

The other five, he thought, were "crappy."

That's the bad news. The good news is his team got two wins anyway.

Perry Ellis scored 15 of his 19 points in the second half, Wayne Selden Jr. scored 14 and No. 2 Kansas survived a stiff challenge before beating Texas-El Paso 67-63 on Saturday night in the third-place game at the Battle 4 Atlantis.

"We have a long ways to go to become a good basketball team," Self said. "And that's not all bad, either. We rarely have great teams in November. But we're not as good as we were 17, 18 days ago. So that's a little frustrating that we've gone backwards. We didn't play well at all over here."

Naadir Tharpe added 11 for the Jayhawks (6-1), who never trailed. The Jayhawks won despite Andrew Wiggins being held to six points, nearly 10 below the freshman's season average.

McKenzie Moore scored 15 for UTEP (4-4), including three free throws with 6.8 seconds remaining to get the Miners within three. Justin Crosgile scored 14 points and Vince Hunter added 10 the Miners, who held Kansas to 39 percent shooting.

"Let me just say that we got beat by a fine team tonight," UTEP coach Tim Floyd said. "And they're going to do a lot of things, I think, in the NCAA tournament this year."

It was the second straight night where Kansas saw a big early lead, 11-2 against Villanova and 15-2 against UTEP, evaporate and the game turn into a struggle.

The finish was frantic, with UTEP scoring 13 points in just over a minute and carving away most of a late 14-point Jayhawk lead, but Kansas had enough.

Barely, but enough.

"I was real pleased with the effort," Floyd said.

Kansas led by 15 in the second half, and after a series of UTEP rallies, the Jayhawks were still up by 14 following Ellis' jumper from the right wing with 2:21 left.

It was 59-45 at that point. It was 18-8 UTEP the rest of the way, a far cry from how the Miners started the night.

He stalled, though said afterward that it wasn't a true stall, just a set with hopes of creating 3-on-2 mismatches or open drives.

It only sort of worked.

After 5½ minutes, Kansas had only two points.

In that same span, the Miners had zero points.

"It was different ... but I thought we adjusted well," Ellis said.

The Miners missed their first six shots and didn't get on the board until 12:35 remained in the half, a drive by C.J. Cooper snapping an 0 for 6 start by UTEP and cutting Kansas' lead to 7-2. By the time UTEP scored again, Kansas had already pushed the lead out to 15-2, running off eight straight. And along the way, UTEP ditched the ploy and just started playing.

But UTEP hung around, all the way to the end.

"We didn't want to leave here without getting better for the rest of the season," Hunter said. "I believe we did. I believe we got better, playing the No. 2 team in the country."

How can I watch UTEP vs. Kansas?

• TV Channel: UTEP at Kansas 2021 College Basketball, week 4, is broadcasted on NBCSN.
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