Live Stats
Game Notes
DENTON, Texas (11/6/07) Fresh off its Sun Belt title and NCAA Tournament berth, the Mean Green basketball team is set to tip off the 2007-08 season with an exhibition tilt against Panhandle State at the Super Pit at 7 p.m.
North Texas head coach Johnny Jones owns a 10-0 mark in exhibition games at North Texas, including a 92-71 win over Texas College last year. Panhandle State is coming off a disappointing season, but returns the Heartland Conference’s leading scorer in LaChawn Anderson, who averaged 17.6 points per game last year. The Aggies fell to an upcoming Mean Green opponent, Oklahoma State, 91-54, on Friday night in Stillwater, Okla.
Jones has turned North Texas into a basketball force. With 86 wins at NT, Jones led the Mean Green to its first Sun Belt title and only its second ever NCAA Tournament birth last season. His teams have ranked third or higher in the Sun Belt in scoring in four of the last six seasons, and have set the school record for blocks in each of the last two years.
What To Watch For
The Mean Green is coming off a magical 2006-07 campaign that saw NT win a school record 23 games. North Texas won its first ever Sun Belt Conference title and advanced to its first NCAA Tournament since 1988.
Quincy Williams and Keith Wooden both earned Preseason All-Sun Belt Conference Third Team honors. With 11 guards on the three all-conference squads, the North Texas seniors represented two of the four frontcourt players selected, with Wooden the only center.
North Texas will hope to repeat last season’s efforts out of the gate, when the Mean Green won 10 of its first 13 games in 2006-07.
One of the toughest venues to win at in the Sun Belt, the Mean Green has won 24 games at the Super Pit since the 2005-06 season - second only to Western Kentucky’s 25 wins.
Only three teams in the Lone Star State had more wins than North Texas’ 23 in 2006-07 - Texas, Texas A&M and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The state has 20 Division I teams.
