North Texas Defeats Charlotte
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DENTON – The view from a season-high winning streak apparently feels pretty good to the North Texas basketball team, so much so that the Mean Green decided to extend its stay another night.
Thursday, North Texas won its fifth-straight game of the year with a crushing 81-65 decision over Charlotte, avenging an earlier loss to the 49ers and moving over .500 on the season (14-13) and in Conference USA play (8-7). North Texas led this one throughout.
In a confrontation at the Super Pit between an all-offense, no-defense squad in Charlotte and a much more balanced team in North Texas, balance won this night. Charlotte entered the game as the top-scoring unit in Conference USA at 73.7 points per game but with the 13th-ranked scoring defense, and the Mean Green confounded the 49er offense and exploited their defense. North Texas held Charlotte to 43.6-percent field-goal shooting and to 31.3 percent from three-point range, well beneath their C-USA-best 38.3-percent season average. Offensively, North Texas hit 54.2 percent of its field goals, including a season-best 56.3 percent from the three-point arc, committing just seven turnovers and scoring more than 80 points for the second time this year.
“We came out with a chip on our shoulder because of the way we lost at Charlotte in January,” Mean Green guard Maurice Aniefiok said. “We let that game get away from us, but we feel like we’re better than we showed that night and we wanted to prove it.”
North Texas charged through the 49ers from the opening tip. Aniefiok led the
initial assault, drilling a pair of three-pointers as the Mean Green hit its first five shots to open a 10-point lead in the first four minutes of play. The Mean Green defense, meanwhile, chased the 49ers off the three-point line, successfully patrolled the paint and forced eight first-half turnovers to contribute to a lead that reached 17 points at 28-11.
When the Mean Green shooting touch finally cooled in the final minutes of the first half, Charlotte rode a 7-0 run to get back in the game, pulling within nine points. But, denied its league-best three-point game, the 49ers never got any closer.
Jordan Williams went on his own scoring run late in the first half, scoring eight points in a 90-second span to pushed the advantage back to a secure margin at halftime, 41-28, and the Mean Green opened up a 20-point lead on a steal and dunk by DeAndre Harris with 9:25 to play in the second half.
Williams and Harris led the scoring for North Texas with 17 apiece, and Aniefiok finished with 15.
