UTEP forward Kayla Thornton, 5, deflects a shot by Tulsa&#8217;s Ashley Clark under the Tulsa basket Saturday in the Don Haskins Center.
UTEP forward Kayla Thornton, 5, deflects a shot by Tulsa's Ashley Clark under the Tulsa basket Saturday in the Don Haskins Center. (Rudy Gutierrez-El Paso Times)
›› Photos: UTEP vs Tulsa women's basketball

Four days ago, UTEP's Kayla Thornton became the greatest rebounder in school history.

In Saturday'S 97-66 wipeout of Tulsa, she delivered the hammer. Well, make that 20 hammers.

That's how many rebounds Thornton added to her career total, which happened to tie the school record for a single game and fit in nicely alongside her 22 points.

A school record was needed to stand out on a day when sixth-player Jenzel Nash had a very loud 24 points, seven rebounds and four assists, Kelli Willingham added 17 with five 3-pointers and six assists, Kristine Vitola had 15 points and the entire offense hit its top gear of the season.

Bret Bloomquist

"That's just me going out and working hard, doing what I'm supposed to do for the team," Thornton said of a day when her team improved to 13-2 overall and a perfect 2-0 in Conference USA heading into Wednesday's huge showdown with Middle Tennessee. "This was a good game but I can always do better."

How, exactly, would be the question, and that goes for Nash, too, who was jaw-dropping on her slashing drives to the basket. She was 11-of-18 from the field and followed in two of those misses on a highlight reel day. The 97 points was a season high.

"I'm very offensive," Nash said. "Once I get going, it's a good thing."

Tulsa actually hung around for a bit mostly because it rained in 6-of-11 3-pointers in the first half, but UTEP answered all of those to take a 13-point leader to the intermission. When the Golden Hurricanes settled down to a more reasonable 2-of-10 from long range in the second half, the afternoon quickly got away from them.

Led by Willingham, UTEP stretched Tulsa by making 12-of-24 3s, Nash killed them with drives, Thornton keyed an effort that created 19 second-chance points (UTEP won the boards 53-36) and the Miners also had 20 assists. UTEP shot 47 percent for the game.

"It's nice to have Kelli find her rhythm," coach Keitha Adams said. "Kayla had 20 rebounds, Kelli was knocking down shots, Jenzel Nash played really well."

This was a contrast to a week ago, when the Miners were in a shooting slump.

"I asked myself, maybe I need to be doing something different," Adams said. "We were not shooting the ball well, we needed to get in the gym and shoot more."

The Miners actually missed their first six shots, and for quite a while, little else. By halftime they made 20 of their last 33 attempts, including 7-of-11 3s, after that cold start. While they were frustrated by Tulsa's ability to answer some of that offense with 3s of their own, the Hurricanes had to be more frustrated still to shoot 47 percent in the first half and trail 50-37.

Then they cooled off and UTEP didn't. The Miners scored on 12 of their first 17 second-half possessions and were up 79-52 with 10:25 still remaining.

"We kind of relaxed and passed the ball a lot, looking for the open player, getting other teammates involved," Thornton said. "The starting five are going to get our points, it's about getting other people going."

By then, the big question was if they would get 100, and while they cooled off in garbage time, Marissa Rodriguez kept the question alive with a 3-pointer with 22 seconds left to make it 97-66. Then Tulsa wisely dribbled out the clock, which didn't dampen the spirits of the 2,405 fans.

"This was a great win against a good team," Adams said. "It's a good thing (UTEP played well offensively) because Tulsa is a good shooting team."

On this night, they weren't nearly as good at it as the Miners.

Bret Bloomquist may be reached at 546-6359.