University of North Texas Athletics
NT Hosting Undefeated Blue Raiders Thursday
2/1/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
North Texas (13-9, 6-3 SBC) vs Middle Tennessee (20-3, 9-0 SBC)
Denton, Texas • The Super Pit (10,500)
Feb. 2, 2012 • 7:00 p.m. CST
TV: NTTV (Denton Charter 22, Verizon Fios 46)
Radio: MGRN • Hank Dickenson
Webcast, Live Stats: meangreensports.com
Series: MTSU leads 8-6 (NT leads 3-2 in Denton)
Last: MTSU won 78-71 on Jan. 5, 2011 in Murphy Center
GAME NOTES
DENTON, Texas – The Sun Belt’s top squad is headed to Denton for a Super Pit showdown with the Mean Green on Thursday night. Tip off against Middle Tennessee is slated for 7 p.m. and can be hear on the Mean Green Radio Network.
The 20-3 Blue Raiders are having one of the hottest seasons in school history. MTSU is one of just five teams in the nation to crack the 20-win mark, and their record is the best in school history up to this point. The owned the nation’s third longest win streak at 12 games prior to Saturday’s 84-77 loss at Vanderbilt.
The Blue Raiders are receiving votes in both top-25 polls, and are currently ranked No. 6 in the Mid-Major Top-25 poll. The last team ranked in the mid-major poll to come into the Super Pit, No. 21 Denver, left with a 75-74 overtime loss on Jan. 21.
With North Texas’ 76-64 win over Arkansas State, Johnny Jones celebrated his 200th career victory as a head coach. Including his stay as the interim head coach at Memphis in 1999-00, Jones has piled up a 200-157 (56.0 percent) record. The next milestone for Jones? Two more Sun Belt wins will make him just the fifth coach in the league’s history to win 90 conference games.
Tony Mitchell is making his case for Sun Belt Player of the Year. In Sun Belt play the freshman leads the league in scoring, rebounding, field goal percentage, 3-point field goal percentage, and ranks second in blocks and eighth in free throw percentage.
It only took 13 games for Mitchell to reach No. 10 on the NT single season blocks list. The freshman racked up six blocks against Arkansas State on Saturday, and now has 32 on the season. At 2.5 blocks per game, Mitchell’s pace ranks just behind Shawnson Johnson (3.0 BPG in 2003-04) for the best blocks average for a single season in NT history.
