GAMEDAY: Mean Green Welcome UTEP

Who: UTEP Miners (6-4, 2-2) vs. North Texas Mean Green (5-5,1-1)
What: Mean Green host UTEP in their first home conference game
When: Friday – Jan. 15 – 7:00 pm CT
Where: Denton, TX – The Super Pit
How (to follow):
– TV: Stadium ( CLICK HERE ) to stream Stadium
– Radio: Learfield IMG College Mean Green Sports Network (Dave Barnett and Hank Dickenson) Listen to Mean Green Sports Network Online: CLICK HERE
– Live Stats: MeanGreenStats.com
– C-USA Standings: CLICK HERE
– North Texas Game Notes: CLICK HERE
– UTEP Game Notes: CLICK HERE

DENTON — The North Texas men's basketball team returns to the Super Pit on Friday for its first home league game of the year when they host UTEP at 7 p.m. The Mean Green and Miners will play again on Saturday in Denton at 3 p.m.

Friday and Saturday's game will be streamed on Stadium and on the Mean Green Sports Network Learfield IMG College.

This weekend's set of games pits UNT head coach Grant McCasland against one of his former coaches.

UTEP head coach Rodney Terry was an assistant coach at Baylor from 1996-98 while McCasland was a student-athlete on the Bears' men's basketball team. McCasland has had the edge over his former coach from the bench. North Texas is 2-0 versus UTEP since Terry took over the Miners program three years ago. In their only meeting last season, the Mean Green won 67-57 at the Super Pit.

"I learned so much from coach T," McCasland said. "I hate going up against him."

In their lone meeting last season, three UNT players scored in double figures led by current senior Zachary Simmons who scored 16 points on 5-of-10 shooting and was a perfect 6-for-6 at the free throw line. Fellow senior James Reese sank three 3-pointers and had a team-high six rebounds.

In what was in the midst of their eight-game winning streak last season, UNT was ultra-efficient against UTEP last time around. The Mean Green had just six turnovers and were 12-of-24 from the field to start the game. North Texas led by 11 at the mid-way point.

NEWS AND NOTES

Head coach Grant McCasland has said some of the offensive issues the Mean Green have had this season are due to the lack of practice the newcomers had this summer and fall due to the pandemic. Newcomer Mardrez McBride was added to this team to fill some of the of the scoring the team lost from last year. So far this year "Drez" has been a little inconsistent but when he's been effective the Mean Green win. Drez has five times this year made multiple 3-pointers in a game. They are also the five games UNT has won this season (MVSU, UAPB, HBU, LSUA and at UTSA).
Over the last six games, newcomer Terence Lewis II is averaging 8 points per game while playing just 12 minutes per game. During this six-game stretch, Lewis II has made 21 of his 26 field goal attempts (80.7 percent). He's also been 8-for-8 at the free throw line over the last six games.
Of all active NCAA DI basketball players who have played in at least 100 games (261 players), North Texas' Zachary Simmons has the third-highest career field goal percentage at .646.
Under fourth-year head coach Grant McCasland, North Texas is 41-7 (.854) when they score 70 or more points. On the flip side, they're just 15-25 (.375) when they've scored under 70 points. In all five of UNT's wins this season they scored over 70 points. And in all five of their losses this year they scored under 70 points. UNT's winning percentage under McCasland only gets better when they score 80 or more points. They are 27-2 (.931) in games where they score 80+. Under McCasland, UNT iS 12-1 when they score 90 or more points.

For more information on North Texas Men's Basketball, follow @MeanGreenMBB on Twitter.

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Players Mentioned

Terence Lewis II

Mardrez McBride

James Reese

Zachary Simmons

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