For two players who are never on the volleyball court together, UTEP's Kalia Kohler and Mattie Gantt seemed joined at the hip in every other way.

They are close friends, they are captains and setters for the UTEP volleyball team , and twice this year they've shared Conference USA's setter of the week award.

They are the engines of one of the top offenses in America, one of the top teams, and this weekend they will lead their Miners into the CUSA tournament as the No. 1 seed and the No. 15 team in the country in the RPI ranking the NCAA uses to seed its tournament.

UTEP opens the CUSA tournament as the league's regular-season champion and will face Missouri State in the first round Friday at 10 a.m. MT/11 a.m. CT.

As a team, UTEP is known for its powerful, physical offense that rank

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