At some point, UTEP could look back at their two games at the Las Vegas Shootout as the turning point of their season.
The bad news was that a day after breaking their eight-game losing streak, they were back on the wrong side of the scoreboard in a 64-57 loss to 9-2 Akron. The Zips closed the game on a 10-3 run to break open a tie game in the final 3:00.
The good news was just about everything else, as UTEP (3-9) seemed to find their groove after a month of struggles. Freshman Ariana Taylor scored a career-high 16 points on five-of-six shooting, and while the Miners couldn't finish down the stretch, they did enough good things in the first 37 minutes to give them some hope for the rest of the year.