By JEFF LATZKE
AP Sports Writer

TULSA, Okla.(AP) -- As Tom Penders climbed to the top of a ladder
to clip down the nets, his players gathered around to make sure
he wasn't going to fall.

At age 64, "Tournament Tom" is headed back to the NCAAs - with a
little different hop in his step.

Kelvin Lewis scored 28 points and made six 3-pointers to break a
Conference USA championship game record, and Houston surged past
No. 25 UTEP for an 81-73 victory Saturday to claim its first
NCAA tournament berth in 18 years.

"We're dancin', we're dancin'," said Penders, in his sixth
season as coach of the Cougars. "I may be dancin' a little
slower than I was the last time I went, but we're dancin'."

Penders is in for the first time since 1999, when he was at
George Washington, and joins an elite fraternity of eight
coaches who have taken four different schools to the NCAA
tournament - including Rick Pitino, Eddie Sutton and Lon Kruger.

Penders also put Rhode Island on the bracket in 1988 and then
did it eight times in his 10 years at Texas.

"This is the most gratifying because, you know, in many ways
when I came to Houston it was almost considered `Mission:
Impossible.' We came so close a couple of times, maybe with some
more talented kids," he said. "But not as gutty."

Penders brought his seventh-seeded Cougars (19-15) to Tulsa with
the mantra that the most dangerous man in a fight was the one
with nothing to lose.

They upset four-time defending champion Memphis and likely burst
its NCAA bubble in the quarterfinals. Houston probably snatched
away another team's tournament berth by snapping the top-seeded
Miners' 16-game winning streak to win the title. UTEP is still
on track for its first NCAA appearance since 2005.

Randy Culpepper scored 20 points and Derrick Caracter added 18
for UTEP (26-6), which hadn't been on such a roll since its
"Glory Road" team won 23 in a row on its way to the 1966
national title. The Miners, who led by nine with 8 minutes to
play, were outscored 15-3 down the stretch to lose for the first
time since being beaten by the Cougars on Jan. 13.

"What I've always said is I don't like to learn from close
losses. I want to learn from close wins," coach Tony Barbee
said. "I thought we had matured and grown beyond this point
where we wouldn't be ready to play in a game as big as this."

Penders' latest tournament-bound team was drilled on taking care
of the ball - with the nation's second-fewest turnovers and best
turnover margin - and usually can rely on a big outing from
national scoring leader Aubrey Coleman.

But with Coleman making only four of his 20 shots and being held
to 13 points - half his average - the Cougars had to find a new
way to win.

Lewis, a senior who transferred from Auburn, filled the void and
hit the go-ahead 3-pointer from the right wing with 3:14
remaining. Adam Brown followed with his own 3, after Caracter
had thrown the ball away into the backcourt, to make it 74-70.

Caracter bounced back with a basket inside to cut the deficit to
two, but Coleman denied UTEP's chance to tie with a steal and
fast-break layup with 54.4 seconds left. Zamar Nixon took the
ball away from Culpepper on the Miners' next possession, setting
up a fast-break layup for Brown, and the Cougars were able to
hold on from there.

"Obviously, it was a gritty, gutty win for our kids," Penders
said. "They just refused to die."

Houston ended up with 12 3-pointers, one more than it did in
beating UTEP the last time, and was 7 for 12 from behind the arc
in the second half. Nixon added 13 points off the bench while
playing through the later stages of mononucleosis.

"Wow! These kids, what heart," Penders said. "What heart. Heart
and execution."

Coleman, who had played the full 40 minutes the previous two
days and 116 total minutes over the first three rounds, was
2-for-12 in the first half and also missed his first five shots
in the second. Then he stopped taking jumpers and focused on
driving to the basket.

"I was kind of burned out, so I said I'm not about to shoot us
out of game," said Coleman, who had nine rebounds, six assists
and four steals. "I'm about to find my teammates. It would have
been selfish of me to try and do that. I wanted to do the little
things."

The Cougars scattered all over the floor when the final buzzer
sounded, jumping up and down in celebration. Coleman eventually
splayed out on the court, wagging his right index finger at a
television camera that hovered over his head.

"The whole year, it was he said, she said about coach Penders
being fired," Coleman said. "What are they going to say now?"