North Texas Daily

The North Texas women’s basketball team displayed an all-around dominant performance on both sides of the ball in a 66-43 win Saturday afternoon against the University of Tulsa, extending its winning streak to four games in the process.

The Mean Green (6-1) were led by an impressive performance from junior guard Terriell Bradley, who led the way with a career-high 23 points (8-of-13 shooting) to get the team its first win over Tula in the last eight meeting between the two. Bradley added to her career night by surpassing the 500 career point mark at North Texas and she now has 700 career points including her freshman year at Kansas University. 

“I didn’t know how close I was coming into the game,” Bradley said. “I was surprised to hear that. I owe it to hard work and dedication.”

The Mean Green entered the game with the No. 2 ranked scoring defense in the nation and again showed their defensive prowess by holding Tulsa (3-6) to an eye-popping 25 percent shooting percentage.

“Defense is huge for us,” coach Mitchell said. “We’ve stopped some good, solid times from meeting their average [points per game], and I think everybody on the team has bought into how we defend as they understand that, whether we’re on or off offensively, playing solid defense and limiting our opponent puts us in a great shape to win.”

The overwhelming defense from North Texas was responsible for forcing 18 total turnovers, four blocks and 5 steals in Saturday’s win. The Golden Hurricanes made just 11 shots in the entire game with almost half their points coming from the free throw line (18).

On the offensive side of the ball, North Texas shot a solid 40 percent from the field, 30 percent from downtown and 63 percent from the free throw line. Behind Bradley, the scoring came from freshman guard Trena Mims, who had a career-high of 15 points, and freshman Lauren Holmes, who added in 11 points with three early 3-pointers in the first half.

“I just try to go the gym as much as I can,” Holmes said on finding her rhythm. “Everybody keeps telling me to shoot the ball, so by continuing to shoot, staying confident in my shot, and by not getting frustrated.”

The Mean Green were one 3-pointer shy of the season’s high (8). However, after adjusting to the multiple defensive sets Tulsa threw at them, the team quickly found alternative ways of scoring with 18 points in the paint, 25 points off turnovers and 14 second-chance points. 

“I think, offensively, we executed really well,” Bradley said. “I think we shot the ball a lot better than we did the last game.”

North Texas also won the hustle battle between the two teams, grabbing 18 offensive rebounds and 24 defensive rebounds in the win. 

“There were two areas we wanted to improve in coming into today, and one of them was rebounding,” coach Mitchell said. “The last few games we didn’t win the rebounding game, so we did that today, and I’m proud of the team for coming together and making sure that happened.”

Mitchell moved closer to a few records of her own today as she climbed to the 5th most wins in program history (29), and has now won the most non-conference games in North Texas women’s basketball history (6).

This is the first time since 2005 the team has started out 6-1.

“Hard work has got us here, and by continuing to do that, we’ll be where we want to be.”

Next Up: The Mean Green travel to Bloomington take on the University of Indiana at 6 p.m. Tuesday, December 5th. 

Featured Image (File Photo): Terriell Bradley (23) attempts to knock the ball out of the path of Tantashea Giger of Texas A&M International. Madison Gore