North Texas News

Women’s Basketball Downed by No. 24 Middle Tennessee

Playing on the road against a ranked opponent for the first time this season, UNT was unable to overcome a strong first half as they fell 72-45 against No. 24 Middle Tennessee Thursday night inside the Murphy Center.

Quincy Noble finished the contest tied for a game-high with 15 points while pulling down a season-high eight rebounds as the Mean Green fell to 11-18 overall and 8-11 in C-USA play with one regular season game remaining on the schedule.

Tommisha Lampkin was second on the team with nine points to go along with four rebounds while Ereauna Hardaway dished out a team-best four assists.

With the score 7-4 in favor of MTSU, the Lady Raiders extended the lead to 14 with a 13-2 run that featured three makes from 3-point range to make the score 20-6 at the end of the first quarter.

After UNT cut the deficit back down to 10 on a layup from Kendall McGruder, MTSU pushed the lead to 18 with a quick 8-0 run in less than three minutes of game action to take a 31-13 lead.

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The teams then traded baskets for the final five minutes of the first half as the Lady Raiders headed into the third quarter with a 37-19 lead.

Trailing 47-26 halfway through the third, UNT was able to score six straight points to cut the deficit to 47-32.

The Lady Raiders re-extended the lead to six with a quick 8-2 run of their own to make the score 53-34 heading into the fourth.

Down the stretch, MTSU scored the final nine points of the game to swell the lead from 18 to the final tally of 27 as the Raiders took home the 72-45 win to stay perfect at home.

The Lady Raiders took advantage of the boards throughout the contest, holding a 40-27 edge in rebounds and a 14-3 advantage in second-chance points.

Quoting Coach Mitchell

"I thought from the start, the first couple of possessions we didn't take the best shot we had available to us. This is already such a tough place to play and when you're not making shots its even tougher. We couldn't make anything and they were making everything. I thought we executed our plays, but even when you execute your plays a part of the execution is finishing. When you're playing a team like this, they have too many weapons they can go to to get a bucket for us to not make shots."

Next Up

UNT plays in their final regular season game of the season Saturday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. in Bowling Green, Ky., against Western Kentucky. A win would lock up the #7 seed in the C-USA Tournament for the Mean Green.

Original source can be found here