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MIAMI (Feb. 20, 2014) — On a last second buzzer-beater, the FIU men's basketball team (13-14, 5-7 C-USA) fell to the North Texas Mean Green (13-13, 4-8 C-USA), 65-63, despite coming back from a 10-plus point deficit with under two minutes to play in the game on Thursday night from FIU Arena.

Senior Tymell Murphy joined the 900-point club, finishing with career-high 31 points on 12-of-18 shooting from the floor. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native is just one of nine Panthers in the program's history to score 900-plus for a career.

Redshirt senior Rakeem Buckles recorded his 12th double-double of the season with a 13-point (6-of-18) and 13-rebound night to lead all players on the glass.

North Texas started the game on a 9-2 run, forcing a Panthers' timeout with 16:39 to go in the half. On back-to-back possessions, Buckles sank a trey and followed with a dunk off a behind-the-back pass from freshman Jason Boswell, which pulled FIU within two points, 13-11. FIU's first lead came at 10:03 off a redshirt junior Dennis Mavin 3-pointer. With under one minute to play, Buckles converted a layup to bring the score to 34-28 in favor of the Mean Green heading into the half.

Buckles led all scorers through the first 20 minutes with nine points (4-of-12 shooting) and a team-best eight boards. Murphy added eight points (4-of-6 shooting), while Mavin had five points. North Texas held a 19-16 edge in rebounds. FIU went a perfect 4-of-4 from the line and scored 18 points in the paint, shooting 36.7 percent (11-of-30).

In the second half with 16:56 to play in the game, Murphy went to the line and went 1-of-2, which was good for the 900th point of his career. Murphy then brought the deficit to under 10 points two minutes later off his fifth layup of the night, making the score 45-37. Boswell was credited with a put-in approaching 9:45 to go off a missed Murphy 3-point shot, which made it a 6-point game, 49-43. North Texas followed with a 7-0 run and took a 56-43 lead with 7:30 to play. Murphy hit his first three of the night and followed with another layup, which made it a six-point North Texas lead with a little under 1:30 remaining.

Two made Murphy shots from the charity stripe with under one minute made it a one-point game. He followed with an “and-one”, evening the game at 63-all with 20 seconds left to play, but a last second shot at the horn would give North Texas the victory.

FIU shot 39.7 percent (23-of-58) for the game and went 14-of-19 (73.7 percent) from the free-throw line. The Panthers were out-rebounded slightly by the Mean Green 37-34, but forced 12 North Texas turnovers compared to FIU's nine. North Texas was held to just two treys during 40 minutes of action.

The Panthers are back in action on Saturday, hosting Tulsa at 2:00 p.m.

Fans are encouraged to follow @FIUMensBBall on Twitter, and “Like” FIU men's basketball on Facebook (www.Facebook.com/FIUMensBBall) for the latest Panther basketball news. Follow all of FIU's 18 athletic teams on Google+ (FIU Athletics), Twitter (@FIUAthletics), Facebook (Facebook.com/FIUSports), YouTube (FIUPanthers), and Instagram (FIUathletics).
 
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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in seven different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including U.S. Century Bank Arena and Alfonso Field at FIU Stadium.
 
About FIU: Florida International University is recognized as a Carnegie engaged university. Its colleges and schools offer more than 180 bachelor¹s, master¹s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida¹s anchor institutions, FIU is Worlds Ahead in its local and global engagement, finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission. FIU has awarded 200,000 degrees and enrolls 50,000 students in two campuses and three centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell and the Miami Beach Urban Studios. FIU is a member of Conference USA and has 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU,visithttp://www.fiu.edu/.