Postgame Notes
Box Score
HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – An aggressive North Texas women’s basketball team bullied Troy in the opening round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament to score a 75-61 win and a trip to the quarterfinals to battle the East’s No. 2 seed Florida Atlantic.
Kasondra Foreman tallied a season-high 12 points and a career-high seven rebounds, and Jasmine Godbolt racked up a game-high 13 points to lead the Mean Green (15-15) past the Trojans (2-26). North Texas, the West Division’s No. 3 seed, moves on to face Florida Atlantic on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
The 14-point win is the Mean Green’s largest in a Sun Belt Tournament game since its record 32-point victory over Western Kentucky in 2002, and a season-high 19 assists helped NT seal the deal. NT also committed a season-low eight turnovers.
The Mean Green was the aggressor early thanks to the play of Foreman. The cutting guard knifed the Trojan lane with ease and had eight points in the game’s opening six minutes, and reached her season high of 10 points in less than 14 minutes.
Foreman landed an old-fashioned three-point play, hitting the free throw after getting fouled on a tear-drop runner in the lane to give the Mean Green a quick 5-0 lead. Laura McCoy made it 8-0 with a 3-pointer from the right corner just over two minutes into the game.
Fellow senior Brittney Hudson converted a 3-point play of her own with a baseline drive and layup to extend the Mean Green lead to 23-11 with 12:43 to play in the half.
NT led by as many as 23 in the opening frame, but went into the halftime break with a 39-32 lead thanks to a 12-0 Trojan run to close the first.
Troy made another run at North Texas in the second half, but Godbolt and the Mean Green had the answer. With the NT lead down to 52-45, Ash’Lynne Evans converted NT’s third 3-point play of the game to push the lead back to double-digits with 11 minutes to play. Godbolt scored another pair of 3-point plays from the right block minutes later to push the NT lead back to 16.
NT would lead by as many as 20 in the second half in pulling off the win.
