Things are looking up as the Miners are coming off their biggest win of the season knocking off Conference USA Co-Leader Memphis to capture their first road win of the season.

After falling behind by nine points at the half, the Miners offense could not get going and things were not looking good to say the least.

For a team that has had trouble closing out close games and struggling in the second half, a great response by UTEP for continuing to play hard on both ends of the floor and not throwing in the towel in a hostile environment with 20 minutes to play.

Whether it was Julian Washburn playing shut down defense on Will Barton or Jacques Streeter’s offensive coming out party (14 pts on 4-5 shooting), the Miners were not going to be denied as they outscored Memphis 41-30 in the second half.

Great player performances especially in the second half by the aforementioned Washburn and Streeter, but a total team effort by all the players on the floor and an exceptional coaching job by Coach Tim Floyd and his staff outclassing Memphis Coach Josh Pastner and his talented Memphis squad.

With the expectations of this season not very high there is a certain feel to this season that this team is starting to put the pieces together and make some serious noise before the season is done.  Not sure there are many 13-13 teams in the country that are playing as hard as the Miners are at this part of the season.

Quite a crossroads as the Miners are coming off a four-game losing streak with some excruciating losses to the present as UTEP is currently on a three-game winning streak finally breaking through on the road at the toughest place to play in C-USA taking down the mighty Tigers in Memphis.

After a signature win it might be easy to jump on the bandwagon predicting a magical run to end the season and possibly the C-USA tournament in a couple of weeks, but first things first.

I won’t forget about this Memphis win for awhile, but it would lose some luster is the Miners cannot finish the season on a high note by at least winning three of the last four games to end the season.

It surely won’t come easy as Southern Mississippi comes to town this Wednesday coming off a surprising loss to Houston looking to take out their frustrations on a UTEP squad with a lot of swagger at the moment.

A loss would not be the end of the world, but if somehow the Miners can keep this thing going and knock off the Eagles things could get quite interesting with three games to go and a chance to improve their seeding in the C-USA tournament along the way.

Just when we thought Southern Mississippi and Memphis were starting to separate from the rest of the pack both teams have hit a snag with four games to go allowing the remaining teams a chance to spoil the party which could mean a wide-open C-USA tournament.

A .500 record isn’t UTEP basketball at its finest, but after the last couple weeks this team is playing as well as the top teams in the conference and is looking to build off their current win streak with big wins versus the top teams in the C-USA standings (Tulsa and Memphis).

If the Miners can take down Southern Miss in a couple days in the Don Haskins Center and keep the streak going, no one from C-USA will want to meet UTEP in the conference tournament come March.

Josh Puga can be reached at show@minerillustrated.com or you can follow him on Twitter at @jpuga1966.