DENTON – The North Texas women's basketball team struggled to find consistent scoring on Friday night and fell to UT Arlington, 68-49.
 
The Mean Green (1-2, 0-0 C-USA) had five players score eight points each but zero hit double figures on a night when UT Arlington (2-0, 0-0 Sun Belt) had three players reach double-digits and another with nine points.
 
"I thought the first half, for us, obviously we didn't shoot it well," UNT head coach Jalie Mitchell said. "I thought we got disconnected a little offensively because of it. I thought we had some opportunities in transition we didn't take advantage of, but I think when things aren't going our way as a team, we have to learn to continue to fight through it. We have to handle adversity a lot better than we did.
 
"In the second half we turned some things around and made some more shots, especially in the fourth quarter," Mitchell added. "Defensively, there were some things we needed to do. On the boards, we got outrebounded and gave them some second chance opportunities."
 
UNT was outrebounded for the first time this season, by a 49-43 margin, and shot just 15-of-27 from the foul line, something Mitchell said they must correct.
 
"We're still not making free throws, and that's a trend, unfortunately, for us right now," she said. "And that's something we have to fix."
 
UNT got eight points apiece from Anisha George, Jazion Jackson, Destinee McDowell, Charlene Shepherd and Summer Jones. George added a team-high nine rebounds, while Shepherd and Trena Mims each pulled down seven boards. George and McDowell entered the game averaging 18.5 and 14 points, respectively, but both got in foul trouble, and McDowell fouled out in the fourth quarter.
 
Freshman point guards N'Yah Boyd and Jackson both went 1-for-11 from the field, and as a whole, the team's guards shot a combined 6-for-40 from the field.
 
"You look at the stat sheet, especially tonight, and you see our freshman point guards are 1-for-11," Mitchell said. "Some of it is a matter of them taking the physical nature of this game and getting used to it and learning to get around it, whether it's going up off two feet instead of one or finishing an and-1 instead of settling for a foul and going to the line. It's just them understanding the importance of those moments.
 
"It's not just them, though," Mitchell added. "Sometimes, you just have to find it from where we have to find it, and I thought they limited Anisha's touches tonight. When she's not getting 20 points, who else is going to score? We had five people with eight, but no one putting it in the hole and helping us gain any ground."
 
North Texas returns to action on Wednesday night when it hosts Xavier (La.) at 7 p.m., at The Super Pit, before hitting the road for the first time this season with a trip to Cal-State Bakersfield and the Rainbow Wahine Showdown in Honolulu, Hawaii, the following week.