North Texas Daily

The North Texas Mean Green men’s basketball team (10-1) won their 10th straight home game by a score of 63-61 against the Texas-Arlington Mavericks (3-7) on Saturday evening.

“I burned a lot of timeouts trying to tell them that we can’t get it all back in one game and we got to figure out a way to do it defensively,” head coach Grant McCasland said.

The Mavericks held it close at the end of the game and had an attempt at a last-second layup but it rolled off the rim and just missed. North Texas came from behind after trailing by 12 with 11:00 remaining in the second half to take their first lead with 3:00 left in the second half and never trailed again after that.

“We’ve been competing like this since coach McCasland got here,” sophomore center Zachary Simmons said. “That grit is just a common theme of something we’ve built inside of us.”

Senior guard Michael Miller led both teams in scoring with 17 points on 50 percent shooting from the field.

Junior guard Ryan Woolridge scored 14 points — 12 of those coming in the first half. Freshman guard Umoja Gibson had 12 points — 9 of which came in the second half.

North Texas held the Mavericks scoreless for about four of the last five minutes for 2-of-12 shooting to end the game.

“I told our team from the very beginning that our strength is our depth and that was on display in a game where [Roosevelt Smart] doesn’t score a basket and [Jorden Duffy] doesn’t score,” McCasland said. “The point is we found a way to win still.”

Junior guard Roosevelt Smart was held scoreless for the first time in his collegiate career but the team was still able to pull out the win.

This makes the 10th win in 11 games making the only game the Mean Green have lost this season to the Oklahoma Sooners on the road.

Next up: North Texas will be in Albuquerque to take on the New Mexico Lobos (5-3) on Dec. 18.