Some NBA scouts came to U.S. Century Bank Arena Thursday night to see North Texas’ 6-8 freshman Tony Mitchell against FIU.

And Mitchell hurt FIU with a game-high 17 points, 12 rebounds and threw down one spectacular Dominique Wilkins-esque dunk.

Yet, the flurry that knocked out FIU in the 68-61 loss came from North Texas junior guard Brandan Walton. Walton’s 8-0 run over 1:10 of the second half turned a close, rough-and-tumble game into yet another FIU home loss.

The Panthers fell to 7-16 overall, 1-7 at home, 4-7 in the Sun Belt Conference.

After taking a brief second half lead, FIU fell behind but trailed only 50-46 with 5:40 remaining. That’s when Walton drained a three- pointer to put the Panthers down 53-46. At the other end, FIU sophomore guard Phil Taylor missed a short jumper with Mitchell at full extension in front of him.

Walton nailed another three. Then, North Texas’ Roger Franklin swiped the ball from FIU senior guard Jeremy Allen, leading to Walton’s fast break layup: 58-46.

FIU got no closer than six, 65-59, off a Tanner Wozniak three-pointer with 27 seconds left.

“Those threes changed the game,” senior guard DeJuan Wright said.

Taylor led FIU in scoring with 16 points. Wright put in 13 and had five assists. Both were 5 of 14 from the field, not accuracy anyone likes to see from their starters or their top two scorer.

They looked like Green Arrow compared to fellow starters Allen (two of nine), Dominique Ferguson (two of 11) and freshman center Gilles Dierickx (one of four).

What especially galling to the Panthers, who aggressively tested North Texas’ point guards’ ball-handling ability: They created 15 turnovers, then turned them into only eight fast-break points.

“We tried to be opportunistic during the game in terms of when we used our press,” FIU coach Isiah Thomas said. “We were able to put our press on at the right time, got a couple of steals but weren’t really able to convert on them. DeJuan missed a layup then, I think, Dominique missed a layup.”

Those could’ve been two big momentum plays, but we just couldn’t make them.”

Meanwhile, North Texas (14-10, 7-4) outrebounded FIU 44-30 and shot 59.1 percent in the second half.

“They’re probably the best team in our conference right now,” Thomas said. “We’ll probably see them again in the [Sun Belt Conference] tournament.”