Box Score

EL PASO, Texas — Guard Randy Culpepper led all scorers with 24 points, including 22 in a torrid first half, as host Texas-El Paso defeated Norfolk State 93-56 in the first game of the Bank of the West Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational on Monday night.

Arnett Moultrie added 19 points and eight rebounds, Derrick Caracter had 15 points and 15 rebounds, and Claude Britten added 10 points for UTEP (8-2), which advances to Tuesday night's 9:30 p.m. ET championship game against Air Force, a 77-71 winner over Niagara in Monday's other contest. NSU (1-9) faces Niagara in the consolation at 7:30 p.m. ET.

The Miners scored the first 17 points of the game to send the Spartans to their eighth straight defeat. Culpepper had 11 of those, including 3-pointers on three straight UTEP possessions in a span of just more than a minute. The last of those gave UTEP a 17-0 lead with 14:25 left in the first half.

The Spartans didn't get on the board until a traditional 3-point play by Christian Morris (Bronx, N.Y.) with 13:45 remaining in the first half. But things wouldn't get much better for the Spartans. Culpepper hit 9-of-10 from the floor in the first half, which ended with the Miners ahead 56-21. UTEP scored 25 points off 17 NSU turnovers while shooting 59 percent in the first 20 minutes.

UTEP led by as many as 44 points in the second half in sending NSU to its worst loss since a 47-point loss (103-56) to UNLV on Dec. 18, 2006.

Michael Deloach (Rocky Mount, N.C.) led the Spartans with 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting. He also matched his season-high with four steals. Morris added 15 points and seven rebounds and was the only other Spartan to score more than five points.

The Spartans committed a season-high 32 turnovers, leading to 45 UTEP points. They also had their streak of 105 straight games hitting a 3-pointer broken. NSU was 0-for-11 from long distance, its worst effort since going 0-for-8 against South Carolina State on Feb. 27, 2006.