University of North Texas
UTSA
UNT Hosts High-Powered UTSA Offense
1/22/2020 2:52:00 PM | Men's Basketball
The Mean Green (12-8, 6-1 C-USA) enter Thursday's game riding a league-best six-game winning streak and have held five straight opponents to below 60 points. The Roadrunners (9-10, 3-3 C-USA) are the second-highest scoring offense (78.4 points per game) in Conference USA and feature Jhivvan Jackson whose 491 total points scored this season are the second-most in the nation.
Thursday's game will be broadcasted by Stadium on Facebook and the Mean Green Sports Network (95.3 FM KHYI) or the tuneIN app.
UNT has a two-game home winning streak over UTSA and has beaten them four of its last five meetings. The one loss came last year in San Antonio when Jackson hit a game-winning jumper with 1.3 seconds remaining.
North Texas' six-game winning streak is its first six-game win streak in conference since the 2009-10 season when the Mean Green ended the regular season on a eight-game winning streak. The 2009-10 team went on to win three games in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament and claim its second league tournament title in four years. They were the last Mean Green men's basketball team to reach the NCAA Tournament.
The 2009-10 team will be honored at halftime of Thursday's game. Head coach Johnny Jones and former student-athletes from the 2009-10 team will be there.
STARTING 6-1 IN C-USA
Since 2009-10, 16 C-USA teams have started 6-1 or better in conference play and only two didn't finish in the top four of the standings. Seven of the 16 teams made the NCAA Tournament.
Tulsa in 2009-10 started 6-1 and eventually went to 8-2 but lost five of its final eight games and finished in fifth-place. They reached the semifinals of the conference tournament that year and earned an NIT bid.
UTEP started 2013-14 with a 6-1 record and finished with a 12-4 conference record which put then in fifth-place. LA Tech, Tulsa, Middle Tennessee and Southern Miss all tied for first that year with a 13-3 conference record.
UNDER 60
UNT has held its last five consecutive opponents to under 60 points. The last time they did that was the 1948-49 season. The last time they held six consecutive opponents to under 60 points was 1947-48. North Texas has held its last five opponents to an average of 55 points per game.
ROAD WARRIORS
North Texas is 3-1 in road conference games. As of Wednesday they were the only team in the league with three or more road conference wins. As of Wednesday, UNT (3-1) and LA Tech (2- 1) are the only teams with an above .500 road winning percentage and more than one road win in league.
BEST START IN 31 YEARS
North Texas' 6-1 start to conference play is its best start to a conference schedule since the 1988-89 team started 8-1 in the Southland Conference.
SAME STARTING 5
UNT is the only C-USA team to have the same starting lineup in every game this season. By this time last year, UNT had three different starting lineups.
MORE FREE THROWS
North Texas' Javion Hamlet enters Thursday's game with 62 made free throws in 20 games played. Zachary Simmons led the Mean Green last season with 58 made free throws in 33 games played.
7-FOR-7
The Mean Green's Zachary Simmons went 7-for-7 from the field on Monday versus Rice. In the 102 years of UNT basketball, there have been five times a player went 7-for-7 or better from the field in a game. Simmons has now done it twice. He went 7-for-7 in UNT's 2019 C-USA Tournament first round victory over FIU.
