EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — The UTEP men's basketball secured a 75-74 win over Yale in a closely contested WestStar Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational championship game at the Don Haskins Center on Saturday night. https://twitter.com/SamGuzmanTV/status/1870689160761061700 UTEP—who led 75-74 with 2.3 seconds left in the game—stopped Yale from getting a shot off on the last play of the contest. https://twitter.com/SSN_UTEP/status/1870689774069309947 That secured UTEP the 2024 WestStar Don Haskins Sun Bowl Invitational championship. This is the second consecutive season that UTEP wins its hometown invitational. https://twitter.com/SSN_UTEP/status/1870690854723362864 “I’m really proud of this team. Are we perfect? No. But we fight and we won it tonight," UTEP men's basketball head coach Joe Golding said postgame. "They (Yale) had an injury early. It made it tough to guard. They put more shooters on the floor.” One of Yale's best players on the squad left the game early in the first half with an injury. Casey Simmons—who averages 9.2 points per game—went out of the game with 17:36 left in the first half. After a slow start to the first half, UTEP popped off from three. UTEP shot 8-of-9 from deep in the first half. The Miners went into halftime with a 45-33 lead over the Bulldogs. In the second half, Yale came alive and made it a super close game. Yale made it a one-point game, 66-65 UTEP, with 06:41 to play in the game. UTEP did not let Yale tie or take a lead in the last minutes of play and held on for the win over the top 100 NET team. UTEP had five players score in double figures in the contest. Otis Frazier III led the way with 15 points. Devon Barnes had 12 points. David Terrell Jr. and Ahamad Bynum each had 11 points, and Kevin Kalu finished with 10 points. UTEP shot 48.1% (25-52) from the floor, 64.7% (11-17) from three, and 66.7% (14-21) from the free throw line. UTEP forced Yale in 16 turnovers and scored a total of 23 points off of them. UTEP had 10 turnovers in the first half and only three in the second. Yale was led by Riley Fox, who had 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting from the floor. Riley hit five three-poiners on eight total attempts. Isaac Celiscar recorded 13 points and Nick Townsend had 11 points in the contest. Yale shot 43.5% from the floor, 45.5% from three, and 58.8% from the free throw line. Yale outrebounded UTEP 43-28 in the game. With the win, UTEP improved to 9-3 on the season with one more non-conference game remaining on its regular season schedule. UTEP will go on holiday break and are back in action on Saturday, Dec. 28 when the Miners take on Northern New Mexico at the Don Haskins Center. The Miners' next four games are all home games. Three of them are Conference USA games: LA Tech (Jan. 2); Sam Houston (Jan. 4); New Mexico State (Jan. 11).