Men's Basketball: Unt Men Fight Off Hot Hawks

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Men's basketball: UNT men fight off hot Hawks

08:56 AM CST on Sunday, December 9, 2007

By Brett Vito / Staff Writer

If ever there was a game that seemed like a trap for North Texas, Saturday's tilt with Hartford was it.

UNT played without its second- and third-leading scorers due to injury and lost two additional players to foul trouble midway through the second half against the Hawks, who fell just two shy of the Super Pit record for 3-pointers made in a game with 17.

Despite it all, UNT found a way to pull away late for a 105-97 victory that at times looked more like a track meet than a basketball game.

"It's a good sign when you can find another way to win," UNT head coach Johnny Jones said. "That is the sign of a good basketball team. With them shooting as well as they were, our guys could have questioned themselves, but we bore our necks and continued to grind. To score 105 points says a lot about our team."

What might have said just as much about the Mean Green is the way it pulled out the win. UNT (6-2) came into the night shooting 33.6 percent from 3-point range and had struggled against zone defenses. The Mean Green appeared to get over those problems while hitting 60.9 percent (14-of-23) of its shots from behind the arc against the Hawks' zone.

The 14 3-pointers the Mean Green hit tied for the fifth most in school history.

Freshman guard Josh White made 4-of-6 from 3-point range, which was no surprise considering he was shooting 56.7 percent from deep on the season.

Several of UNT's other players who had been struggling to hit from 3-point range also came through for UNT. Senior guard Dez Willingham hit 4-of-7 shots from behind the arc, while fellow senior guard Ben Bell went 2-for-3. Junior guard Adam McCoy went 2-for-5.

McCoy (12.5 percent) Willingham (10.5 percent) and Bell (7.1 percent) were all shooting under 15 percent from 3-point range for the season.

"The difference was practice. We got into practice and worked with the gun," Bell said of a machine that feeds shooters the ball at the 3-point arc. "This was the kind of performance we needed to get us going shooting the ball."

UNT had to turn to the trio for offense because senior center Keith Wooden missed the game after having arthroscopic knee surgery earlier in the week while junior guard Collin Dennis sat out with a high ankle sprain. Dennis was averaging 13.0 points a game, while Wooden was posting 12.7.

UNT has gone inside to Wooden at critical times throughout the last two seasons, but had to turn to other players against a Hartford team that hit several big shots at key junctures. The Mean Green took its biggest lead of the second half at 82-73 on a Willingham 3-pointer with 8:29 left, but didn't put the Hawks away until late.

Hartford tied the score at 93-93 with 2:23 left on a Joe Zeglinski 3-pointer.

UNT didn't have much choice other than to turn to its backcourt for offensive production the rest of the way. Forwards Harold Stewart and Kedrick Hogans fouled out at the 10:24 and 9:32 marks, respectively.

Freshman guard Tristan Thompson came through with a 3-pointer that sparked a 7-0 run that helped UNT pull away for the win.

Thompson scored five of his career-high 18 points during the surge that finally put away a Hartford team that always seemed to have an answer for any run UNT put together, usually in the form of a 3-pointer. The Mean Green led by as much as eight points twice in the first half, the second time at 21-13 on a pair of free throws by White, who led UNT with 24 points. Bell added a career high 23.

The Mean Green needed every point it could get from the duo after Hartford began to heat up from behind the arc. The Hawks hit 10 3-pointers in the first half, including four from Zeglinski.

Hartford kept right on shooting and hitting from deep, forcing UNT to keep pace, a goal it met in perhaps its best shooting game of the season.

UNT was particularly deadly in the second half from behind the arc, making 69.2 percent of its shots (9-of-13).

Hartford shot 45.9 percent (17-for-37) from 3-point range for the game. Zeglinski made 6-of-10 shots from behind the arc and finished with 24 points, tying for a team-high with forward Warren McLendon.

"I have never seen anything like it with two teams shooting the ball like that," Willingham said. "We were contesting their shots, but they were hitting them."

Hartford sat back in a zone and dared UNT to keep pace, a goal the Mean Green couldn't reach in a loss to UT-Arlington earlier this season when it made just 6-of-21 from deep. UNT faced a similar challenge against Hartford and came through.

"They were running that zone," Bell said. "We had to hit our shots and we did."

Briefly …

Senior forward Quincy Williams finished with three blocks against Hartford and moved past Shawnson Johnson into fourth place in UNT history with 71. Johnson had 69 blocks for the Mean Green in the 2003-04 season, his only campaign at UNT. … The Mean Green finished with a 36-30 advantage in rebounds, despite playing without Wooden, and has now out-rebounded all eight of its opponents this season. Wooden's average of 5.6 rebounds a game ranked second on the team heading into the game.

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com.

North Texas 105, Hartford 97

HARTFORD (4-6) -- Turner 2-5 3-5 8, Minor 1-2 0-0 2, Estes 2-6 0-0 4,

Baker 3-3 0-0 8, Zeglinski 8-5 2-2 24, Von Rosenberg 2-5 2-2 6,

McLendon 7-17 9-13 24, Torres 0-0 0-0 0, Glowiak 3-8 0-0 9, Bookman 0-0 0-0 0,

Sabia 4-8 0-1 12. Totals 32-69 16-23 97.

NORTH TEXAS (6-2) -- Thompson 4-5 8-8 18, Stewart 1-2 5-7 7, Williams

4-7 3-4 11, Bell 8-10 5-5 23, White 6-8 8-10 24, McCoy 2-9 2-2 8,

Willingham 5-8 0-0 14, Hogans 0-1 0-0 0, Montague 0-0 0-0 0, Howerton 0-0

0-0 0. Totals 30-50 31-36 105.

Halftime -- Hartford 47-45. 3-point goals -- Hartford 17-37 (Tuner

1-2, Minor 0-1, Baker 2-2, Zeglinski 6-10, Von Rosenberg 0-2, McLendon

1-6, Glowiak 3-8, Sabia 4-6), UNT 14-23 (Thompson 2-2, Bell 2-3, White

4-6, McCoy 2-5, Willingham 4-7). Fouled out -- Stewart, Hogans. Rebounds

-- Hartford 30 (McLendon 8), UNT 36 (Williams 7). Assists -- Hartford 21

(Turner 7), UNT 14 (White 6). Total fouls -- Hartford 27, UNT 21. A -- 2,157.