North Texas Daily

Akshay Mirchandani // Staff Writer

Behind a double-double from freshman forward Eboniey Jeter, the Mean Green women’s basketball team upset the University of Texas-El Paso Miners at home Wednesday night, 73-64. The Miners came into the game at fourth in the Conference USA standings and on a conference-high seven-game win streak.

With the absence of sophomore forward Acheil Tac, Jeter played 35 minutes, the most she has played all season. Only averaging 7.3 minutes per game this season, she made the most of her extra playing time and poured in a team-high 19 points and grabbed 13 rebounds.

“To constantly cheer the team on, that’s what keeps me motivated because the team is more important than myself,” Jeter said. “So I keep the team first, and then my opportunity does come. It came, and I got to pick up where [Tac] or whoever else left off.”

The game was close for the first minutes of the first half, but the Mean Green (11-14, 5-7) went on a 16-0 run and led UTEP (20-5, 9-3) 39-28 at halftime. UNT shot at 46.9 percent on overall field goals and 42.9 percent from the three-point line in the first half.

“I don’t think they respected our shot,” sophomore forward Alexis Hyder said. “They were cramming the paint; they were just stuffing it in there. They knew that’s where our bread and butter was. So they were so packed in there that everyone was kind of open to shoot.”

UNT’s hot shooting slipped in the second half as they only shot 34.4 percent from the field and failed to make a three pointer. However, the Mean Green never gave up the lead and scored 28 points in the paint and 16 second chance points.

“We started playing downhill and getting to the rim,” head coach Mike Petersen said. “We had a couple of breaks in transitions, we had some post ups and put-backs. We need to be able to shoot the ball, we need to be able to make jumpers, but our bread is butter inside.”

UTEP came into Wednesday leading C-USA in scoring with 79.5 points per game, but the Mean Green defense held them to 64 points on 36.5 percent shooting. The Mean Green also did a good job on UTEP senior forward Kayla Thornton, who is the sixth leading scorer in C-USA with 19.5 points per game. She scored 16 points, but shot 27 percent.

“Kayla Thornton is really good. She’s been player of the week in this league four times already this year,” Petersen said. “Our players did a great job tonight of frustrating her because they understood scheme, they understood where we want to go.”

The Mean Green will now travel to play Tulsa at 2 p.m. Feb. 22. The two teams met earlier this season on Jan. 29 in the Coliseum where Tulsa beat the Mean Green 79-63.

Feature photo: Junior forward Briesha Wynn charges toward the hoop past a University of Texas at El Paso defender. Wynn scored 14 points during Wednesday night’s home win at the Super Pit. Photo by Edward Balusek / Staff Photographer