North Texas Daily

Women’s basketball defeated the University of Southern Mississippi 72-66 at home Thursday night.

North Texas (8-8, 2-4 Conference USA) found themselves in a double-digit deficit at the beginning of the second quarter after Southern Miss (11-6, 3-3 C-USA) hit two 3-pointers.

Following a Mean Green timeout, they went on a 16-1 scoring run to end the half with a 38-34 lead.

Junior guard Dominique Davis controlled the game early for the Lady Golden Eagles, as the Louisiana State University transfer scored 11 of her 22 points on the night in the first ten minutes of the contest.

Redshirt junior guard Quincy Noble said the attitude of the bench players for the turnaround before the half.

“They were hungry, very hungry,” Noble said. “The people that came in they were hungry like it just helped us be like ‘well we need to turn it up,’ they’re coming in with sparks – we gotta level up.”

Freshman guard Chloe Callahan provided a spark off the bench that led to the first half 16-1 run.

“I came in and I noticed that we played confident I’d say from the beginning,” Callahan said.  “So I came in, and I don’t know, I decided that was gonna play some good defense tonight. We got a bunch of steals and played off of it and had great defense.”

Junior guard Jazion Jackson also praised the team’s energy and communication on defense for securing the North Texas win that broke a three-game losing streak.

“Anytime somebody’s clapping and we [cheering] ‘oh we gonna get a stop – let’s go white,’ we’re gonna get us a stop,” Jackson said. “That’s what we do every day in practice, and like I said, defense is one of our strengths and we definitely showed that.”

The Mean Green stayed in front of Southern Miss for the rest of the game led by 30 points from Noble on 12-24 shooting without hitting a 3-pointer. The team shot 17 percent from the 3 point line, 76 percent from the free-throw line and forced 19 turnovers.

Mitchell said she’s proud of the team’s resolve and toughness to pull out the win at home to end a difficult month.

“A lot of things that we talked about the last week or two I think showed up,” Mitchell said. “We won the rebounds by two, we had some great energy and contributions […] from everybody as a team and everyone’s minutes are extremely important. I cannot stress that enough.”

Featured image: Freshman Randi Thompson dribbles the ball during the UNT vs. UTSA women’s basketball game on Feb. 22, 2020. Image by Ryan Cantrell.