North Texas Daily

The North Texas Mean Green women’s basketball team (4-4) scored 33 points in the third quarter in route to a 100-75 victory over Houston Baptist (4-3) in front of a home crowd Wednesday afternoon.

The Mean Green showed they have a variety of different scorers, with all 12 players scoring on the afternoon and six finishing in double figures.

This was the first time North Texas has scored 100 points since 1997 when the Mean Green scored 116 points against Texas Southern. With 0:11 left, senior Orianna Shallow hit a three-pointer to reach triple digits for the Mean Green. Head coach Jalie Mitchell said she couldn’t be happier for Shallow, considering the work she has put in for the program over the last four years.

“I think this was a great night of a lot of different people stepping up and having big games and us being able to celebrate one another for that,” Mitchell said. “That was a great moment for Orianna. She deserved that moment, and I’m glad she had it.”

Redshirt sophomore forward Madison Townley played her best game of the year after missing out on Saturday’s game due to injury. Townley scored a career-high 14 points and added a game-high 10 rebounds for her first career double-double.

Townley said the team was extremely excited to have an offensive outbreak in front of thousands of elementary students who were loud and rowdy for the annual Kid’s Game.

“Our group has never done that,” Townley said. “You can see how excited we were knowing we accomplished that.”

Junior post Anisha George finished with a team-high 15 points while adding three rebounds, despite being in foul trouble early in the first quarter. George did not get the starting spot until the Tiger Turkey Tipoff on Nov. 23 but has averaged a team-leading seven rebounds per game and scored 66 points since being named a starter.

“I think she can get a double-double every night,” Mitchell said last week. “I hope she understands how big of a piece she is to our success. It’s huge for us to have a post presence.”

North Texas started out the game 10-of-13 from the floor to gain an early 20-8 advantage. The Mean Green made it clear they wanted to drive to the basket and use their size advantage to score down low, scoring 18 of their 24 first-quarter points in the paint.

“We know we have some people who can take care of business inside, so we wanted to make sure we punched it in there and let them go to work,” Mitchell said.

However, Houston Baptist finished the final 3:00 of the first quarter on an 11-4 run to cut the North Texas lead to 24-19.

Mitchell stressed after Saturday’s game against Missouri State that the Mean Green needed to improve on rebounding — and they did that today, outrebounding Houston Baptist 48-26.

“I think everybody made a concerted effort as a group to box out better and crash to the boards more,” Mitchell said. “It’s something we’re capable of doing. There’s no reason for us to be on the wrong end of rebounding.”

North Texas outscored Houston Baptist 33-21 in the third quarter and converted on seven straight field goals to take a 64-40 lead, which was more than enough for the Mean Green to cruise to the finish line.

Trena Mims led the team in assists coming into the game. The sophomore point guard from Muskogee, Oklahoma, finished the game with a career-high nine assists. She has led the Mean Green in assists in six of the eight games this season.

Featured Image: File.