DENTON – The North Texas women’s basketball team won their third consecutive game on Saturday after a 75-50 defeat of the Florida International Panthers.
The Mean Green have played a tough schedule over the past several weeks, and in the preview earlier this week, I said this weekend would be a golden opportunity for Coach Jalie Mitchell and her squad to grab two wins against sub-par teams at The Super Pit.
UNT (14-11, 7-6 C-USA) handed Florida Atlantic an 82-62 loss on Thursday night and blew out FIU by 25-points on Saturday, which happens to be the largest margin of victory for the Mean Green in C-USA play this season.
This women’s basketball program continues to improve little by little under Mitchell and her staff. The win over FIU on Saturday gave UNT their seventh win in Conference USA, which surpasses the Mean Green’s conference win total from last year with three league games remaining.
“We want to be playing our best basketball right now,” Mitchell told UNT Sports Information. “It’s great when it’s everybody contributing. It always feels good to get to a point when it doesn’t really matter who is shooting it.”
Mitchell is exactly right. There’s no better time to start playing great basketball than at the end of conference play and heading into the C-USA Tournament at The Ford Center in Frisco.
Who knows? After all the hype about the men’s team this year, could it be the Mean Green women’s basketball team with the chance to sneak into a C-USA Tournament championship game to have a chance to advance to the NCAA Tournament? Right now, they’re on a roll and Mean Green fans will just have to watch and see how things play out.
UP NEXT: After an off day on Thursday, the Mean Green will be rested to host conference leader Rice at The Super Pit on Saturday at 3 p.m.
Florida Atlantic (5-20, 2-10 C-USA):
Senior guard Terriell Bradley showed up ready to score on Thursday night and finished with a game-high 24 points.
“We moved the ball really well tonight,” Bradley told UNT Sports Information. “We were being really aggressive and pushing it in transition. We are headed in the right direction.”
North Texas had no trouble scoring against the Owls as they scored 82 points, dished out 16 assists, grabbed 46 rebounds and knocked down 10 three-pointers.
Callie Owens scored 11 points in a two-minute span at the beginning of the second quarter to give the Mean Green their first double-digit lead of the game. The run gave UNT a 29-17 lead and would just be the start of a convincing win for North Texas.
Florida International (4-22, 1-12 C-USA):
North Texas outscored FIU 25-8 in the second quarter and Charlene Shepherd finished with a career-high 16 points to lead the Mean Green in a decisive win over the Panthers.
Shepherd also finished with a team-high seven rebounds, while Bradley led the scoring charge again with 19 points.
UNT put a special focus on ball movement and finished with a season-high 17 assists. The team also matched their high in steals (9) and rebounding margin (+13).
The UNT women started out slow and fell behind 11-6 midway through the first quarter. However, Madison Townley’s 15-foot jump shot sparked a 10-0 run for the Mean Green to retake the lead.
The rest of the game was history from that point as North Texas continued to pour it on the Panthers throughout all four quarters.
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