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DENTON, Texas – On Thursday evening at the Super Pit the HBU men's basketball team dropped a non-conference matchup to the North Texas Mean Green, 85-55.
 
Both teams traded threes to open the game with North Texas (3-3) taking an early 6-3 lead. Mardrez McBride connected on two-in-a-row to make it 9-3 ahead of a Philip McKenzie layup for the Huskies (1-6) brought it back to a four-point game. A minute and a half later, Za-Ontay Boothman knocked down a trey to bring HBU with two, 13-11. From there, the UNT defense locked down on the Huskies and the Mean Green went on a 31-4 run to close out the half.
 
The Mean Green lead got as high as 40, with UNT leading 68-28 at the 10:18 mark, but HBU answered with a 14-point burst and a 17-2 run to bring the score to 70-45. That was as close as the Huskies got the rest of the way.
 
Boothman led the Huskies with 16 points, knocking down 4-of-6 from beyond the arc, while also pulling down a career-high five rebounds. Junior Darius Lee added a career-best 14 points in 17 minutes off the bench, making 6-of-8 from the floor. Pedro Castro also scored 14 and led the team with seven rebounds to go along with two blocked shots and two steals.
 
It was a tale of two halves for the Huskies, with the team shooting just 21.4 percent from the floor and committing 15 turnovers. In the second half, meanwhile, HBU turned the ball over just twice and shot 44.8 percent.
 
Neither team got many opportunities from the foul line with HBU making all eight of its attempts from the charity stripe and North Texas converting 5-of-10 free throws. The Mean Green held a 39-25 advantage on the boards and ended the night shooting 61 percent (36-of-59) from the field. Javion Hamlet finished with a double-double of 19 points and 10 assists.
 
HBU will play its final non-conference road game on Saturday, Dec. 19, afternoon in Norman, Okla. at 4:00 p.m. against the Oklahoma Sooners.