EL PASO, Texas – The Cameron men's basketball provided plenty of scare for the UTEP Miners on Halloween by hanging with the NCAA Division I squad until the final four minutes on Saturday afternoon.  A late 11 point run by UTEP provided enough momentum get past the Aggies in an exhibition win 78-69 at the Don Haskins Center. 

"Number one, everyone is healthy after today and we had plenty of guys see some playing time," said head coach Nate Gamet.  "Overall, we played well a group but fouls came back to hurt us over the course of the afternoon.  I thought that Tyler (Williams) as a freshman played fantastic and out of both teams today I believe he was the best freshman out there."  

Deondre Ray paced the Aggies with 18 points off of 6-9 shooting on the floor in 22 minutes, Tyler Williams was CU's second leading scorer in his debut with 13 points, and JV Long hit double-figures with 10 points in his first on-court action in nearly two years.

Box Score

Fouls were the overhanging story on Saturday afternoon with the Aggies putting the Miners up to the line 37 times with UTEP netting 30 points at the charity stripe.  Cameron was put to the line 11 times, all in the first half of the contest.

In first half the Aggies led as many as six points it would be a neck-and-neck battle up to the intermission thanks to a three-pointer from Aleksandar Malinic at the buzzer gave CU a 37-35 advantage at the half.  

UTEP couldn't pull away from the Aggies in the final 20 minutes and after a 45-39 lead the Aggies scored 10 unanswered to take a four point advantage with 12:37 left.  However later in the contest, after the game's 16th tie CU's momentum came to a halt off of 11 unanswered points by UTEP in the final four minutes.    

Cameron led for over 17 minutes, with the score switching sides 19 different times, and tied on 16 different occasions.  CU also had all 13 players who traveled to UTEP step on the court with 11 seeing more than ten minutes of playing time.

The Aggies shot 27-72, 37% from the field and 7-27, 25.9% from the arc; UTEP was 22-47, 46.8% on the floor, and 4-15, 26.7% at the arc.  In the rebounding battle, UTEP led the Aggies 43 to 34.

Lee Moore led the Miners with 28 points and was solely reasonable for a 9-0 run to break a 67-67 tie with the Aggies in the final minutes.

The Aggies will return the action on Friday, Nov. 13 to play Newman University at 5:30 p.m.