Robert McKiver scored eight of his 19 points during an 18-4 second half run, propelling Houston to a 74-67 win over UTEP on Saturday night at Hofheinz Pavilion.

The spurt turned a 39-35 Miner lead into a 53-43 advantage for the Cougars, who snuffed out a late UTEP rally to post their seventh win in eight Conference USA home games.

Houston (16-14, 10-6 C-USA) gained a split of the season series with the Miners (14-16, 6-10 C-USA), who will be seeded 10th in next week’s Conference USA Tournament. UTEP will face seventh seed Rice (14-15, 8-8 C-USA) on Wednesday at 11 a.m. MST (noon CST) in the FedExForum at Memphis. The winner of that game will meet second seed UCF (22-8, 11-5 C-USA) in Thursday’s quarterfinal round at 11 a.m. MST.

Stefon Jackson scored 25 points to lead UTEP on Saturday, and Houston native Dale Vanwright chipped in with 16 points. The Miners shot 38.2 percent to the Cougars’ 35.1 percent and outrebounded Houston 47-34.

“The main key is we didn’t take advantage of opportunities offensively,” UTEP coach Tony Barbee said. “We defended well and we rebounded well, and our guys competed hard.”

Jackson had his best shooting game of the season, going 10-for-14 from the field, and Vanwright made 6-of-11 attempts. But the rest of the Miners were a combined 5-for-30 from the floor. Kevin Henderson was 0-for-7 from the floor, Malik Alvin was 1-for-7 and Marvin Kilgore was 1-for-6.

Marcus Malone nailed five three-pointers and scored 19 points for Houston. Jahmar Thorpe, playing in his final home game for the Cougars, added 14 points, all in the second half.

Houston got off to a slow start offensively and the Miners took advantage, building a 13-5 lead as the Cougars missed 11 of their first 12 shots.

UTEP took a nine-point lead – its largest of the night – at 21-12 on two free throws by Maurice Thomas with 8:08 remaining in the half. Back-to-back three-pointers by Malone lifted the Cougars into a 32-27 advantage with 2:18 to go in the half, as the Miners went over five minutes without scoring a field goal.

The game was tied at 32 at the intermission.

After Houston took a 10-point lead midway through the second half, UTEP battled back to tie the score, 57-57, on a layup by Jackson with 6:32 to go. Free throws by McKiver and Thorpe put Houston ahead 60-57 with 5:40 remaining. UTEP closed to within 60-59 on a layup by Jackson but that was as close as the Miners could get, as Thorpe buried a three-pointer to put the Cougars up by four with 4:41 left.