Wronkoski’s lone trey of the night pulled Louisiana (3-5, 1-1 Sun Belt) ahead 73-71. Following back to-back defensive stops which preserved the lead, Elfrid Payton, Shawn Long and Bryant Mbamalu connected on six free throw attempts to put away the Mean Green (3-5, 0-1 Sun Belt) spoiling the hosts final Sun Belt Conference opener.

A three-point play from Chris Jones with four seconds left pulled the Mean Green within one, 77-76. Mbamalu stepped to the line for the first time in the contest, with 3.4 showing, and drained both shots.

Elridge Moore captured a steal on the length-of-the-court inbounds pass by the Mean Green and hit one of two free throw tries for the final margin.

In a classic Ragin’ Cajuns-Mean Green battle, there were 15 ties and 15 lead changes. And for the fourth straight meeting the final margin was four points or less.

A career-high 27 points on 9-of-13 shooting by Long, season-high 19 points that included a 5-of-5 showing from three-point range from Mbalamu combined with a career-high tying nine assists by Payton led Louisiana to its fourth consecutive regular season win over North Texas.

It was Louisiana’s first road win of the season and brought an end to a three-game losing streak.  

Mbamalu’s season-high five treys highlighted a 9-of-18 showing from beyond the arc for the Cajuns who outscored the Mean Green 27-12 from three-point land.

Chris Jones paced the Mean Green with 23 points, 10 coming from the free throw line. Louisiana’s defense continued to stymie NT’s All-American candidate, Tony Mitchell, holding him to only one field goal attempt and three points and four rebounds. The Cajuns held Mitchell to single digits for the third time in four meetings.

Louisiana takes a week-long break from action as the University administers final exams Monday-Friday, Dec. 3-7. The next outing takes place at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles against Interstate 10 rival McNeese State on Saturday, Dec. 8. Tipoff in Lake Charles is set for 7 p.m.

The Mean Green used a 6-1 rebounding edge at the onset of the second half, limiting the Cajuns to just three shot attempts, and opened a 50-44 lead.

With 15:16 remaining, Long completed an old-fashioned three-point play and on the next Cajuns touch Payton scored a layup to slice the Mean Green’s advantage to 50-49 with 14:26 remaining.

Long converted a three-point play at 13:10 to put the Cajuns head 52-50. The back-and-forth play ensued with the teams swapping baskets until a Jordan Williams layup put NT in front 57-55 at 11:29.

The nip-and-tuck play continued the rest of the contest with the lead changing nine times and neither team grabbing an advantage greater than four points, that coming after Payton’s two free throws with 15.3 seconds remaining.

After NT shot 52 percent (15-of-29) in the opening stanza, the Cajuns defense held the hosts to 39 percent (11-of-28) in the final 20 minutes. Louisiana had just 17 shot attempts after halftime, but connected on 10 (58 percent) and outscored the Mean Green 16-13 from the charity stripe.

Louisiana improved to 4-1 against the Mean Green in Sun Belt regular season games under Bob Marlin’s direction. In the final Sun Belt meeting with NT in Denton, the Cajuns made it back-to-back wins at The Super Pit for the first time since meetings in 1999 and 2001.

Louisiana erased an early 4-0 Mean Green lead with a 7-0 run that was capped by an Mbamalu trey in the left corner at 16:30.

Moore spun through the lane at 15:27 for a layup that provided the Cajuns an 11-8 lead. Louisiana opened the game 5-of-11 from the floor and outboarded the Mean Green 7-2.

The lead swapped hands twice inside of the 14 minute mark as Jordan Williams stuffed home a NT miss for a 12-11 lead, then Long returned the lead to the Cajuns, 14-12, at the 12:37 mark.

NT scored on five straight possessions over the next two minutes, staging a 12-0 run that vaulted the hosts into a 24-14 lead.

Kasey Shepherd stopped the Mean Green run with a triple at 10:04. That was the first of seven unanswered that lowered the Cajuns deficit to 24-21 by the under-eight timeout.

After the Mean Green stretched their advantage to 31-24 following two Clarke Overlander freebies at 4:56, the Cajuns closed out the half outscoring NT 15-8 to forge a 39-all tie at the break.

An Mbamalu three-pointer with 3:02 tied the game at 33-all and was the first of four ties in the final three minutes of the opening stanza.

Louisiana shot 50 percent (7-of-14) in the final eight minutes, but the Mean Green fired off 60 percent (6-of-10) to fend off the Cajuns hot finish.

BANK SHOTS: Saturday’s game marked the Cajuns final Sun Belt contest with North Texas at The Super Pit in Denton as the Mean Green heads to Conference USA following the 2012-13 season…Louisiana and NT met for the 36^th time overall and 17^th time in Denton…The Ragin’ Cajuns increased their all-time series lead to 20-16…The contest finished off a stretch of eight games in 20 days for Bob Marlin’s squad to start the 2012-13 season…Final exams begin on Monday, Dec. 3 and the Cajuns aren’t scheduled to play again until Saturday, Dec. 8 at McNeese State…Louisiana has just three games scheduled over the next 15 days (Dec. 8 at McNeese, Dec. 11 vs. Lamar and Dec. 15 at Houston)…The Cajuns were missing four players for the matchup with the Mean Green – Cornell Barnett (dental), Braylon Lazare (ill), Alan-Michael Thompson (ill) and Donovan Williams (knee)…Sophomore walk-on Aaron LeBlanc saw action for the first time in his collegiate career…With the Cajuns playing in Texas, Bob Marlin’s son Matt, who studies at the University of Texas in Austin, was able to make the short drive to Denton to visit with his father…It was a homecoming of sorts for Cajuns assistant Shawn Forrest who served as an assistant on Johnny Jones’ North Texas staff from 2008-09 through 2011-12…The Cajuns closed out the earliest start to conference play in school history by facing a Sun Belt Conference division favorite for the second straight contest (played East favorite Middle Tennessee on Thursday)…Louisiana used the same starting lineup for the fourth straight game – at guard was Bryant Mbalamu, Elfrid Payton and Steven Wronkoski with Shawn Long and Elridge Moore in the post…Elfrid Payton reached six assists in the first half alone, marking his fourth game of the season with at least six assists…Payton tied his career-high of nine assists set against the Mean Green in last season’s Sun Belt Tournament…Shawn Long reached double figures in points for the seventh time in eight games and 20-plus points for the third time…Bryant Mbamalu made a season-high five three-point field goals which aided him in scoring double digits for the second straight outing (scored 11 vs. MT)…Mbamalu finished one off his career-best for triples which is six set at Troy back on Feb. 4…After playing on Friday and Sunday the previous two weekends, the Ragin’ Cajuns finally took in a Saturday contest…The Cajuns will play on every Saturday through the remainder of the regular season except Jan. 26 and Feb. 9 (because of Mardi Gras) with Saturday games accounting for 12 of the remaining 23 contests.

NEWSPAPER BOX SCORE

Louisiana vs North Texas

12/01/12 7:00 p.m. at Denton, Texas (The Super Pit)

LOUISIANA (3-5, 1-1 SBC) Long, Shawn 9-13 8-8 27; Mbamalu, Bryant 6-6 2-2 19; Payton, Elfrid 4-13 6-8 14; Moore, Elridge 3-7 3-6 9; Wronkoski, Steven 2-7 0-2 5; LeBlanc, Aaron 1-2 0-0 3; Shepherd, Kasey 1-3 0-0 3; Moss, Matthew 0-0 0-0 0; Brown, Kevin 0-1 0-0 0; Soto, Josh 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 26-53 19-26 80

NORTH TEXAS (3-5, 0-1 SBC) Jones, Chris 6-12 10-13 23; Franklin, Roger 6-7 2-4 14; Williams, Jordan 5-12 0-0 11; Patton, Justin 4-6 0-0 8; Holmen, Jacob 3-9 0-0 8; Williams, Alzee 1-9 5-6 7; Mitchell, Tony 1-1 1-2 3; Overlander, Clarke 0-0 2-3 2; Hardwick, P.J. 0-0 0-0 0; Stojiljkovic, Niko 0-1 0-0 0; Coleman, Keith 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 26-57 20-28 76

Halftime Score: Tied 39-39. 3-point goals–Louisiana 9-18 (Mbamalu, Bryant 5-5; LeBlanc, Aaron 1-2; Wronkoski, Steven 1-3; Long, Shawn 1-4; Shepherd, Kasey 1-2; Soto, Josh 0-1; Payton, Elfrid 0-1), North Texas 4-9 (Holmen, Jacob 2-4; Williams, Jordan 1-3; Jones, Chris 1-2). Fouled out–Louisiana-Long, Shawn, North Texas-Mitchell, Tony. Rebounds–Louisiana 32 (Payton, Elfrid 6), North Texas 34 (Jones, Chris 5; Franklin, Roger 5). Assists–Louisiana 14 (Payton, Elfrid 9), North Texas 7 (Jones, Chris 4). Total fouls–Louisiana 19, North Texas 22. Technical fouls–Louisiana-None, North Texas-None. Att-3631

— Ragin’ Cajuns —