By David Rogers. DENTON, Texas — After App State fell behind North Texas by 15 points early in the second half, senior guard Myles Tate scored 19 of his game-high 21 points after intermission to bring the Mountaineers to within two points of tying the Mean Green. It wasn’t quite enough, however, with North Texas holding off their visitors from Boone, 68-64.
The Mean Green win came in spite of four Mountaineers scoring in double figures, including forward C J Huntley recording his 1,000th career points. The Huntersville, N.C. native and alum of Davidson Day School is just the 37th Mountaineer to achieve that milestone.
In addition to Tate’s 21 points and Huntley’s 17 points for the game vs. North Texas, Alonzo Dodd and Jalil Beaubrun each scored 10 points on the night.
The Mean Green led by just five points at halftime, but scored the first four points of the second half to take a 9-point advantage, 37-28, following a fast break layup and two free throws from 6-1 senior guard Atin Wright, a native of Hawthorne, Calif. who started his college career playing at Cal State Northridge for three years before transferring to Drake University a year ago, then using the transfer portal again to arrive at North Texas. He played in 32 games at Drake in 2023-24, starting in all 32 of them.
Four App State turnovers in the first seven minutes of the second half allowed North Texas to jump out to a 15-point lead, a run that included five straight made free throws by the Lone Star State players, two by Rondel Walker and three by Brenen Lorient.
But the Mountaineers clawed back into the fray, led by Tate’s four buckets from long distance in the last 11 minutes along with scoring contributions from Dodd, Huntley and Beaubrun and a tightened App State defense.
With time running out (only 19 seconds remained when Tate hit on a 3-pointer to close the deficit to 64-62), App State was forced to foul. Unfortunately, the Mean Green’s Jasper Floyd was good on 4-of-4 from the charity stripe in the last 19 seconds, effectively thwarting the Mountaineers’ comeback rally.
App State (6-6 overall, 0-1 in Sun Belt) will take some time off for the holidays, returning to the court on Thursday, Jan. 2, to take on Troy in a Sun Belt Conference home opener at the Holmes Convocation Center. Tipoff is slated for 6:30 p.m.
North Texas (8-3 overall), a member of the American Athletic Conference, stays at home to host Houston Christian on Dec. 22 and University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) on Dec. 31, before opening the new year at Memphis on Jan. 5 in a first AAC contest for the season.
