Monday night was not for the faint of heart.

In a game of bully ball, the Cowboys wrestled their way to victory over previously unbeaten North Texas 68-61 in front of 3,537 fans dressed in white inside the Legacy Center.

The victory was the 20th straight at home for the Cowboys, who improved to 2-2. UNT fell to 3-1 with the loss.

“Hell of a win for us,” said McNeese State head coach Will Wade. “They are a great team. It was a big night for our program.”

After watching a 13-point halftime lead disappear, the Cowboys caught their second wind, outscoring the Mean Green 23-9 over the final 7:17.

“We had to lock in mentally and on defense,” said forward Joe Charles. “And we had to make free throws down the stretch.”

With the crowd going wild, the Cowboys held UNT without a basket for 6:58, turning a 52-45 deficit into a 57-56 lead with 3:50 remaining on a Sincere Parker free throw. Parker fueled the McNeese rally, finishing with a game-high 18 points, 15 coming in the final 16 minutes.

“We knew they were a great defensive team,” said Parker. “I missed a lot of shots in the first half I should have made.”

McNeese made 12-of-16 free throws in the final four minutes to hold off UNT and its swarming defense. The Mean Green were coming off a victory at Minnesota.

Up 59-58 with 2:24 left, Parker hit four straight free throws and Javhon Garcia made two more to put the lead up to seven (65-58) with 39 seconds left, sending the crowd into a frenzy.

“Seeing the crowd was crazy,” said Charles, who played the last three years at Louisiana-Lafayette. Charles finished with 10 points, nine rebounds and five steals.

The biggest defensive play for McNeese came when Charles blocked former Cowboy Johnathan Massie’s shot with 54 seconds left and the Cowboys up 63-58. The ball bounced off Massie and out of bounds to McNeese.

“This was a big step forward for us as a team,” said Parker. “We have a long way to go, but we can build off this.”

Charles made a tip-in at the buzzer to give McNeese a 32-19 lead at the end of the first half only to see UNT storm back. The Mean Green, who had four players score in double figures, went on an 18-2 run to take a 42-38 lead with 11:28 remaining.

“The first half our defense turned to offense,” said Wade. “We got bogged down. We needed to move them and then drive and we weren’t doing that.”

Quadir Copeland and Parker started to go to the basket. Copeland, seeing his most playing time of the season after Alyn Breed was ruled out with an injury, scored nine of his 11 points in the second half.

Copeland, a transfer from Syracuse, made all three of his shots from the floor and was 5-for-8 from the free-throw line to pump life into the McNeese attack.

“Copeland was awesome tonight,” said Wade. “I can’t say enough about him. He came up big for us.”

Breed is likely out until the first of the year when the Southland Conference heats up.

It was the type of game Wade hoped for when he sought to upgrade the McNeese schedule in the offseason.

“We did what we needed to do,” said Wade.

The Cowboys finished hitting 26 of 39 free throws after making just seven of their first 14.

“It was very physical, but we had a game plan and we were prepared,” said Charles.

McNeese will head to the Paradise Jam Friday in the U.S. Virgin Islands for a three-game event. They will open against 3-1 Illinois State at 2 p.m.