North Texas Wins At FIU

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MIAMI – The night should have belonged to Alzee Williams. After all, the senior became the 20th North Texas player to ever reach the 1,000th point plateau. But, with the game tied with just seconds on the clock, Chris Jones ran up the gut of the FIU defense and hit a contested runner to lift the Mean Green to a 65-63 victory on Thursday night.

“That was my first college game-winner, so I’m always going to remember that,” said Jones following his 10-point, seven-assist, five-rebound performance. “It was just a special moment to have all of my brothers run over to me after the shot fell.”

North Texas led by 10 with 2:17 to play, but Tymell Murphy and the Golden Panthers clawed back into the game. Murphy led all scorers with 31 points, the last of which tied things on a 3-point play with 22.3 remaining.

That’s when NT head coach Tony Benford drew up a play for Jones to take a high ball-screen around Colin Voss, which he executed to perfection.

Jones’ heroics stole the spotlight from Williams, who finished with 14 points to elevate his career total to 1,009. The bucket that crossed the 1,000-point barrier might have been the easiest of his career – a wide open layup with 5:20 remaining in the first half. Williams now sits alone in 19th place on the program’s scoring charts.