BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – After falling behind early, WKU Hilltopper Basketball was never quite able to make up the deficit, despite a second-half rally, dropping a game to North Texas 70-66 on Thursday night.
"A hard-fought loss," said interim head coach Phil Cunningham. Head coach Rick Stansbury missed his third game in a row due to a health matter. Senior guard Jordan Rawls was also out Thursday night due to a hand injury he sustained last week. "The game was decided in the first 10 minutes of the game when we got down 21-2. Ultimately, at the end, it was too much of a deficit to overcome."
"But, I'll say this, and maybe nobody wants to hear it," Cunningham continued. "But we told our team it wasn't just those five guys who made the comeback, because they were in and it was our best lineup with what they did and what they were trying to do. It wasn't just those five guys. It's 15 guys in that locker room and every coach and every manager. Since we got that call from John Erwin, our trainer, about eight days ago, those guys, and they might get tired of hearing me say this, they have been unbelievable. Every day, every hour, they've been tremendous. I think the fact that we got down 21-2 and never gave up, and came back and actually, if we get a few stops here and there, have a chance to win that game, is a testament to what I'm saying."
North Texas (12-3, 3-1 C-USA) opened up the game on a 21-2 run and WKU didn't score a field goal until the 10:17 mark when Dayvion McKnight hit a mid-range jump shot from the left side of the basket.
WKU (8-6, 0-3 C-USA) used a 7-0 run twice, once between 11:14 and 9:52 to cut it to 21-9, and again from 5:51 to the end of the half, cutting it to 32-24. Two key 3's from Jairus Hamilton along with multiple forced shot clock violations kept the momentum in favor of the Tops for the five seven minutes of the game.
From 7:49 to halftime, WKU held North Texas to just six points, shutting them out of the final six minutes of the half entirely. The Mean Green outrebounded the Tops 26-9 in the first half.
Out of the break, North Texas held the Hilltoppers at arm's length, often responding to a WKU bucket with a timely 3-pointer.
WKU used a 16-6 run over the course of nearly five minutes to chip away at the Mean Green lead, taking it from 54-39 at the 10-minute mark to just 60-55 with just under five minutes remaining.
The Hilltoppers would come within four and three, thanks to multiple sets of McKnight free throws, but never closer.
McKnight led all scorers with 29 points, 22 coming in the second half, along with five rebounds, two steals and an assist. He netted 13 of his 15 shots from the charity stripe. Hamilton joined him in double-digit scoring with 16 points and five rebounds.
Tyrone Marshall and Dontaie Allen played significant minutes for the Hilltoppers. Allen logged eight points and three rebounds and a steal in 16 minutes while Marshall's presence was felt with three boards, two assists and a steal in his 23 minutes.
North Texas' Tylor Perry made 7 of 16 from the field, making three 3-pointers, scoring 22 points. He had four assists and four boards as well.
"I think the biggest thing about our team is that our team is going to fight," said Allen on the team's drive. "There's so many negative things that people could bring up about us losing the last four or whatever it is, but our team is fighting. Everybody's saying, we're in a storm right now, but that doesn't mean we're not going to fight and we're not going to control what we can control. We're approaching every game that same way."
WKU will travel to UTSA for a Saturday afternoon match-up. The 3 p.m. CT game will be streamed on Stadium.
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