MIAMI — The Mean Green men's basketball ended its regular season with a 73-58 loss at Florida International Saturday night. 

With the loss, North Texas (20-11, 8-10) earns the 10th-seed for next week's Conference USA Championship. They will face the same FIU (19-12, 10-8) team in the first round of the tournament on Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. CT at the Star in Frisco. The game will air live on ESPN+. It will be the third time in the last month UNT and FIU have met.

"Everyone had just enough good and not enough great," said head coach Grant McCasland following Saturday's loss. "This will of course be our third time playing FIU so we know what works for us against this team. It's just going to be a matter of executing on Wednesday in the tournament." 

On Saturday, a rough start to the game for the Mean Green put them in a hole. UNT trailed by as many as 22 in the first half due to a 23-percent field goal percentage and 10 first half turnovers.

A scoring drought of nearly six minutes during the first half was the result of the poor shooting and UNT went on a almost 10-minute drought without a field goal in the half. The drought led to a 40-24 halftime deficit, which is the largest this season. 

"Our attention to detail to start the game wasn't what we wanted," McCasland said. "Their senior Brian Beard Jr. is a heck of a guard., Give him credit and give them credit because they were the more aggressive team to start the game."

FIU who entered Saturday forcing an average of 20 turnovers per game got UNT to turn it over 21 times, which led to 24 points for FIU. 

The Mean Green, who despite their smaller size score over 40 percent of their points in the paint and often outscore the opponent in the paint, were held to just 20 paint points on Saturday and were outscored by 14 near the rim. 

During the end of the first half and into the early portion of the second half, there was a nearly 12-minute stretch where UNT scored 20 points but all 20 came from the free throw line or from beyond the arc. 

UNT found the stroke in the second half, shooting 45 percent, and closed the gap to as few as 10 points and outscored the Panthers by one in the second frame but just couldn't make the necessary stops to pull off the comeback. 

QUICK SHOTS

• North Texas' Roosevelt Smart scored his 1,000th career point on Saturday. He's the 23rd Mean Green player to reach the milestone and just the fifth to do so in his second season with the Mean Green.
• Redshirt freshman Umoja Gibson surpassed Calvin Watson for second-place on the single-season three-point list with 91 three-pointers this year. It is the second consecutive season a UNT player has surpassed Watson's once record mark. Roosevelt Smart made 133 three-pointers a year ago, 
• Senior Tope Arikawe had a season-high eight points on Saturday.