UNT Falls To FIU

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MIAMI, Fla. – After trailing by as many as 18 points, the North Texas men’s basketball team put on a furious second half rally but it fell short as FIU held off the Mean Green to win 70-64 at U.S. Century Bank Arena.

Down by 18 points midway through the second half, North Texas (7-12, 2-6) cut the FIU lead to just four points on a 3-point play from Roger Franklin, with 1:07 left. Despite the career-high 29 points from Franklin, FIU (9-8, 4-4) was able to hold off North Texas with late free throws to hang on for the win.

“The thing I knew coming into the game was we had to handle their pressure and we didn’t do a good job of that tonight,” said head coach Tony Benford. “Roger played great, and Niko was solid as well off the bench, but we just can’t turn the ball over like that.”

Mistakes plagued North Texas as they had a season-high 23 turnovers that led to 33 points off of those mistakes for FIU.

After taking a 12-point lead at the break, FIU pushed it to 18 points at 50-32 with 13 minutes to play. That’s when North Texas began cutting into the Golden Panther lead with strong play from Niko Stojijkovic and Franklin.

Stojijkovic had six straight points to start a North Texas 10-2 run in the second half to cut the FIU lead to 52-42 with nine minutes left in the game. Stojijkovic finished the night with a career-high 12 points. The Mean Green defense continued to force mistakes from FIU and slice further into the lead.

A 3-pointer from Malik Smith made it 63-54 with 1:31 remaining, but five straight points from capped off by Franklin’s 3-point play cut the lead to four points at 63-59, but FIU made

seven free throws down the stretch to put the game away.

FIU opened the game with 3-pointer, but Alzee Williams fueled a 13-2 run to give North Texas an early 13-5 lead with 14 minutes to play in the first half. Williams scored eight of the first 13 points for North Texas.

FIU countered back with a 12-2 run to take a 26-22 lead with 2:54 left in the half. The Golden Panthers continued to pour it taking a 36-24 lead into the halftime break. North Texas had 13 first half turnovers, which powered the 19-2 run in the final 6:52 of the first half to give FIU the 12-point lead at the break.

North Texas continues the road trip on Saturday night as they face Florida Atlantic at 6 pm.