In an extremely physical game with few whistles, especially early, young Tulsa was no match for mature, experienced North Texas.
Reigning NIT Champion North Texas, with mostly upperclassmen, shoved and pushed Tulsa around, and was the much tougher team. TU had no answer, as Tulsa fell 68-55 to North Texas on Wednesday night in front of a crowd of 4,054 at the Reynolds Center.
Tulsa (12-10, 3-7 AAC) got off to a horrible start, with seemingly endless steals by the Mean Green early, which set the tone for the entire game. Down 11-2 in the first 5 minutes, TU was really never in the game.
North Texas (13-9, 6-4) was in complete control, as the Mean Green led 45-34 at halftime where neither team got in the foul bonus in the half.
A jump hook and subsequent free throw by Cobe Williams with 2:53 left in the half narrowed the margin to 8 points at 32-24. But that was as close as it would get the rest of the game. Tulsa never got within double digits in the second half and trailed by as many as 19 points.
"I'm not going to make any excuses. I think that they were just, flat out, tougher and more physical than us tonight," said Tulsa coach Eric Konkol. "That is something we have to improve on. I told our team in the locker room, I think the time is over for talking about age. We've played enough basketball. Guys have enough experience.
"Just disappointed that we weren't able to be more competitive from the start."
P.J. Haggerty scored 20 points, all in the second half, to lead TU. But it was Haggerty's scoreless first half with no free throw attempts that was an accomplishment from the roughshod Mean Green defense.
Haggerty ended up going 10 of 14 from the free throw line in the second half, and Tulsa was 16 of 24 from the line overall in the final 20 minutes. However, by the time most of the free throws were shot, Tulsa was out of the game. It mattered little.
Besides early steals, UNT's big men backed in Tulsa's defenders for easy buckets early. Tulsa never recovered.
A UNT team that played only one player that wasn't an upperclassmen, sophomore leading scorer for the season Jason Edwards (18.2 ppg), was just bigger, stronger, and more accomplished.
With the officials calling very little on either team, especially in the first half where neither team got into the bonus, Tulsa just never found a way to adjust.
Aaron Scott, a 6-foot-7 junior, led UNT with 18 points and 10 rebounds. The 6-foot Edwards, after only scoring 2 in the first half, ended up with 15 points. Robert Allen, a 6-9 senior, had 12 points and 5 rebounds.
UNT had 10 steals, including 6 in the disastrous first half. The Mean Green outrebounded Tulsa 34-27 for the game.
"Very, very disappointed with this type of performance at home in front of our fans," Konkol said. "We've got to get better.
"Very tough team to play from behind on. Because they don't turn the ball over much. They play the whole clock. And they are very good defensively."
Next up for Tulsa is UAB (14-8, 6-3) at 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon at the Reynolds Center.
"More than anything and any team we play, we've got to come with a mindset of, we've got to make the defensive end more important," Konkol said. "We've got to be more relentless in our pursuit of the next play. And we need to get it more on the defensive end."
