I hit the road tomorrow to catch up with the UNT men on their way to Bowling Green for their game against Western Kentucky, where I will also get a chance to see quite possibly the most snake-bit team going at UNT at the moment.
Yep, the UNT women’s basketball team.
The Mean Green was in a tight game with a tough opponent again last night and came up short.
This time around it was Middle Tennessee, which is traditionally THE TEAM in the Sun Belt.
MTSU has struggled a little this year and actually dropped a home conference game to Florida International. The Blue Raiders got UNT, though, when Icelyn Elie hit a corner 3 with 14 seconds left to give MTSU a 66-64 win.
For those of you scoring at home, UNT has now lost in the closing seconds to Oklahoma, MTSU, Arizona, Alabama and SMU.
The Mean Green is sitting there at 2-9.
I have mentioned this before during what has been a tough start for UNT, but veteran head coach Mike Petersen, who actually has a pretty good team, may be learning the hard way that it isn’t easy being green.
UNT seemingly hasn’t gotten a call in a key spot or made the key play late all year.
All is not lost, though. UNT is 1-1 in Sun Belt play and can recover.
I thought MTSU head coach Rick Insell made a telling comment after the game:
“They’ve got a good basketball team. I think they are as good as anybody on their side of the bracket, including UALR [Arkansas-Little Rock. [Mike Peterson] does a good job. They played hard.”
Loryn Goodwin moved into the starting lineup, which I thought might be coming and finished with 12 points. UNT had four players finish in double figures led by Alexis Hyder with 13.