Conference Play Starts Thursday

DENTON -- The North Texas men's basketball team begins league play on Thursday with a nationally televised road game at Conference USA preseason favorite Western Kentucky. Thursday's game versus the Hilltoppers is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. CT on ESPNU and the Mean Green Sports Network (DFW: 88.1 & 95.3, Cook Co: 92.3 & 1580).

UNT (6-7) enters Thursday on a two-game winning streak while WKU (7-5) has dropped two straight after handing Arkansas its first loss of the season on Dec. 7 at home.Thirteen of the league's 14 coaches picked the Hilltoppers to finish first in the conference's preseason coaches poll. Under third-year head coach Grant McCasland the Mean Green have won all their conference openers. Furthermore, McCasland has a division I head coach has never loss a conference opener.

ESPN's Pat O'Keefe and King McClure will have the call and the voice of the Mean Green Dave Barnett and Hank Dickenson will have the call on the Mean Green Sports Network.

SHOOTERS
UNT is one of the nation's top 3-point shooting teams. They rank in the top 60 in the nation in 3FG percentage (32nd, 37.9%), total 3FG made (44th, 116 made), 3FGs per game (60th, 8.9 per game).

DEFENSE FIRST
UNT has one of the nation's top defenses, holding opponents to just 61.4 PPG which ranks 37th in the nation. Not including the season opener, they've held all but one opponent below their season scoring average.

FLOOR GENERAL
Redshirt junior point guard Javion Hamlet has started to find his groove as the team's floor general. In the team's first seven games, Hamlet had 15 assists and 24 turnovers (.6 A/TO). But in UNT's last six games, he's had 37 assists (6.1 per game) and just 13 turnovers (2.8 A/TO).

SCHEDULING TOUGH
According to KenPom.com, North Texas' first 12 opponents combined was the fifth toughest offensive schedule in the nation. Ken Pom ranked seven of the first 12 opponents in the top 100 defensively.

ZACH ATTACK
After starting the season 20-of-41 (.487) from the field over the first seven games of the year, junior Zachary Simmons is 29-of-38 (.763) in the six games since.

ASSIST RATE
North Texas' Javion Hamlet has an assist rate of 33.6, which means he's assisted on 33.6 percent of all Mean Green field goals that happened when he was on the court. Hamlet's assist rate ranks first in Conference USA and is 52nd in the nation as of Monday. He and Middle Tennessee's Donovan Sims are the only C-USA players with an assist rate that ranks in the top 100. Sims ranks 82nd.

18 STRAIGHT
North Texas' Umoja Gibson has made a 3-pointer in 18 straight games.

LET IT FLY
44.6 percent of all UNT field goal attempts this season have come from beyond the arc. That ranks second in C-USA and 42nd in the nation. They are attempting 23.5 3FGs per game, which only ranks sixth in C-USA. Rice leads C-USA, 49.8% of all their field goals attempts are 3-pointers, which is fifth highest in the nation.

CHARGES
North Texas has drawn at least one charge in all but one game this season (12/5 vs. Oklahoma). They have drawn 23 charges on the year. Deng Geu and Thomas Bell lead the team each with seven drawn charges.

BLOCK MACHINE
On Saturday Abdul Mohamed had a career high four blocks in just 10 minutes. It's also a UNT game-high this year.

FIVE OR MORE
Since the start of last season, North Texas is 13-2 when Zachary Simmons makes five or more field goals in a game. Over the last three years, UNT is 17-5 when he makes five or more field goals. They are 4-1 this season. The one loss came at No. 13 Dayton. He was 7-of-10 at Dayton.

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Players Mentioned

Thomas Bell

Deng Geu

Umoja Gibson

Javion Hamlet

Abdul Mohamed

Zachary Simmons

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