DENTON — The North Texas men's basketball team fell 62-59 to Western Kentucky Saturday afternoon at the Super Pit.

In a grind-it-out game, the Mean Green (20-5, 8-4) went through a tough stretch in the first-half where WKU (15-10, 8-4) separated themselves a bit from North Texas by double-digits.A strong second-half comeback by UNT where they combated WKU's pace with transition points brought them back to life, but just could not break through. 

"First give a lot of credit to Western Kentucky," said head coach Grant McCasland. "There's two parts to this. Our team is still learning how good we can be. There was a stretch there where it looked like our guys still weren't sure if they were going to win offensively. But defensively we played really well."

But we need to play in more of these types of games to gain experience," he added.

Going up against the on average tallest team in C-USA, the Mean Green grabbed as many rebounds as WKU — 38 — and grabbed twice as many offensive rebounds. They forced WKU into 16 turnovers and kept the ball out of their workhorse's hands for most of the second-half.

But the stretch McCasland referred to was a first-half that saw UNT go 1-of-15 from deep and attempt just one free throw as they were held to a season-low 15 first half points. 

"They baited us into shooting and we didn't do a good job being patient enough in the first half," said redshirt freshman Umoja Gibson who finished with a game-high 18 points. "But we went into halftime confident and knew if we stuck together we'd be alright."

In the second half, North Texas outscored WKU by 12 and scored 29 more points than they did in the first. 

Shooting nearly 50 percent in the second half, 35 percent from deep and scoring 19 points off transition, the Mean Green had WKU on its heels. 

Gibson made all five of his three-pointers in the second-half to give him 72 for the season, which is five away from the school record for a freshman and five away from the third-most in a single season in school history.

As North Texas chopped away at the deficit the 8,159 fans in attendance, which is the fourth largest in school history, brought the energy back to the Super Pit and shortly the Mean Green trailed by just four. 

A couple late baskets by WKU at the end of shot clocks were the dagger, though and sealed the win for the Hilltoppers who have now won six of their last seven.

QUICK SHOTS
-          The crowd of 8,195 is the fourth largest crowd in Super Pit history
1.       10,600 vs. SMU (1/22/77)
2.       9,100 vs. DePaul (12/16/80)
3.       8,816 vs. West Texas State (3/1/76)
4.       8,195 vs. Western Kentucky (2/9/19)
5.       8,100 vs. Texas (1/17/80)

-          With the loss to Western Kentucky, the Mean Green are now 20-5 in 2018-19
-         After tonight's loss, UNT has won 16 of its last 18 at home dating back to last season.
-         UNT is now 12-2 at home this season.
-         The 15 points scored in the first half by the Mean Green was their lowest first half output this season.
-         The previous low was 22 in a win over UTEP on January 10 in El Paso.
-          Of redshirt freshman Umoja Gibson's 235 field goal attempts this season, 179 have come from beyond the arc.
-         Gibson posted a team-high 18 points, his 16th game in double figures this season (17th of his career)
-          Senior guard Michael Miller registered 14 points, his 14th game in double figures this season (17th in his career).
-          Junior guard Ryan Woolridge also scored a team-high 18 points and became the 22nd player in UNT history to score 1,000 for his career. (1,002)