University of North Texas
-174,101 CUSA
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UTEP
-149,74 CUSA
Men's Basketball Wins Ninth Straight
2/7/2022 10:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
DENTON – The North Texas men's basketball team extended its winning streak to nine in a row Monday night with a 66-58 home win over UTEP.
Preseason All-Conference forward Thomas Bell led the Conference USA leading Mean Green with 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists. Not far behind Bell was sophomore Abou Ousmane who scored 17 points and grabbed a game-high eight rebounds.
The nine-game winning streak is the Mean Green's longest under fifth-year head coach Grant McCasland and its longest since their 11-game winning streak at the end of the 2009-10 season.
"That's a really good team," Ousmane said of the Miners who entered Monday's game on a six-game winning streak. "They're really well coached and skilled. But we believe when we lock in defensively we can't be scored on. We did a much better job in the second half locking in defensively and scoring around the rim."
UNT (17-4, 10-1 C-USA) forced UTEP (14-9, 7-4 C-USA) into 19 turnovers, which the Mean Green turned into an efficient 21 points Monday night.
UNT limited themselves to just nine turnovers and attacked the Miners' paint all game. North Texas attempted a season-low 10 3-pointers in the win. It comes two days after they attempted just 11 3-pointers in its 69-45 win over UTSA.
Ousmane and Bell were the beneficiaries of the paint touches.The duo combined to score 21 points in the paint as the Mean Green as a team scored 38 around the rim.
UTEP got out of the gate hot Monday and led North Texas for a majority of the first half. The Miners' Jamal Bieniemy scored 15 points in the first half and UTEP led in the game by as much as seven points.
A nearly five-minute UTEP scoring drought at the end of the first half led by the UNT's defense propelled the Mean Green into a five-point lead.
"We talked it out as a team during timeouts and fixed some errors we were making," Bell said. "Once we started putting the clamps down we picked up momentum and we were able to carry it from there."
UNT held Bieniemy to just two second-half points as they outscored UTEP 39-31 in the final 20 minutes to seal the victory.
"We're still learning every game and we're finding different ways on how to win each game," Ousmane said. "We know as long as we're the toughest team we'll have a great chance."
UNT begins a three-game road trip starting Saturday at Rice. The Mean Green and Owls are scheduled to tip-off at 2 p.m. CT from Houston. The game will be broadcast on CUSA.tv and the Mean Green Sports Network.
