UTEP Miner women's basketball scrambles for position Thursday at Rice

The UTEP women finish its regular season with a two-game road trip that starts Thursday night at Rice.

The 6 p.m. Mountain time tip at Autrey Court will be streamed on ESPN+ and carried on the UTEP Miners app.

This is a rematch of Rice's 72-69 victory last month at the Don Haskins Center.

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Who is Rice?

A three-time defending Conference USA champion, the Owls have gone through a rebuilding season under first-year coach Lindsay Edmonds and have come through it better than expected.

Rice started C-USA play 0-5, but after winning four of its last five is up to 6-9 in the C-USA West and 11-12 overall.

Ashlee Austin, a 6-foot forward is averaging 16.4 points (fifth in C-USA) and 6.1 rebounds, but the Owls are remarkably balanced after her. Five other players average between 9.0 and 10.1 points. One of those, point guard Destiny Jackson, leads C-USA with 4.7 assists a game.

What's at stake?

UTEP enters this game a half-game behind Rice in the battle for sixth, which avoids a preliminary-round game in the Conference USA tournament against UTSA next Tuesday. Rice has played one fewer game than the Miners and it won't be made up.

Given that Rice hosts last-place UTSA on Saturday, UTEP almost certainly needs to sweep the Rice-North Texas trip to avoid sixth.

What's the challenge

UTEP has won just one road game since mid-December, that coming against UTSA, so everything will start with traveling well.

Leading scorer Destiny Thurman, who has missed the last two weeks with a concussion, is making the trip so the Miners are hoping to get her back. Having multiple players have big games is something that hasn't happened much in the recent run of struggling play so that would help.

Mostly UTEP has to have a better shooting night and get a handle on Rice's multiple scoring options.

More:Analysis: UTEP men's basketball reaches final stretch of successful season

Quoting the team

"I'm just really excited to get out on the road and go to Rice and play in a competitive game and see how we do," coach Kevin Baker said. "We're getting healthier and healthier every day so I'm excited about that.

"To beat Rice, they've got a team full of double-digit scorers we have to guard everybody. Six people on their team can put the ball in the basket. We've got to guard to a plan, we have to be multiple, guard in a lot of different ways. But I think if we guard them and we rebound I think we'll be just fine."

Guard Katia Gallegos agreed.

"We've got to come out ready and locked in. Every team is beatable to as long as we stick together and don't beat ourselves, we'll be good.

"They are a good scrappy team, they are going to fight to win. We just have to guard them, that's it, play our offense, be a little patient, go play our game."

Bret Bloomquist can be reached at 915-546-6359; bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.