Box Score EL PASO, Texas – UC Irvine used its superior size to earn an 80-62 victory over the Norfolk State men's basketball team on Tuesday night in the championship game of the Sun Bowl Invitational.
 
In the final game of the tournament hosted by UTEP at the Don Haskins Center, the Anteaters outscored the Spartans 28-16 in points in the paint – it had been 22-6 at one point – and held a 47-33 rebounding edge. UC Irvine improved to 10-4 by limiting NSU to 27.6 percent shooting for the night (16-of-58 field goals).
 
The Spartans (5-8) were led by senior Jeff Short, who tallied 24 points with six rebounds. He shot 9-of-12 from the free throw line, while senior Charles Oliver hit all 10 of his free throw attempts. Oliver added 18 points, while no other Spartan player had more than six.
 
Mamadou Ndiaye, UC Irvine's 7-foot-6 center, finished with 21 points on 8-of-9 shooting to go along with nine boards and five blocks. Luke Nelson contributed 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting and drained four of the team's eight 3-pointers.
 
The Anteaters scored eight of the game's first 11 points, but Short's four-point play and Oliver's trey gave NSU the lead after the conclusion of a 9-2 run. The Anteaters immediately countered with a 10-0 run for a 20-12 lead at 9:38. The run eventually reached 22-4 as NSU went almost 12 minutes without a field goal.
 
Sophomore Zaynah Robinson finally broke that drought with a trey at 3:45, and UC Irvine led by as much as 17 before going into the half up 39-23.
 
Oliver hit all seven of his charity stripe attempts in the first two and a half minutes of the second stanza, but Ndiaye scored UC Irvine's first six points to keep the Anteaters up by double digits. The Spartans got as close as 14 on Short's two free throws and then sophomore Jordan Butler's dunk at 13:40.
 
The Anteaters went up by as much as 25 before cruising to the final margin of 18.
 
UC Irvine had an 8-3 edge in blocks. The Anteaters also got strong performances from a pair of 6-10 forwards in Mike Best (10 points) and Jonathan Galloway (seven points, nine rebounds). The Anteaters hit 25-of-53 for the game (47.2 percent) and 22-of-33 from the foul line. A total of 29 of those attempts came in the second half.
 
Butler led all players with 11 rebounds, his second straight game in double figures. NSU hit 8-of-24 from the 3-point line and 22-of-28 (78.6 percent) from the charity stripe.
 
It marked the first time in almost a year NSU hit less than 30 percent from the floor.
 
NSU will next play its cross-town rival Old Dominion on Dec. 29 at 7 p.m. at ODU's Ted Constant Center.