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As North Texas prepared for its CBI opener at South Dakota, Grant McCasland had a problem. The Mean Green were limping when they accepted the tournament invite, having lost seven of their last eight games. McCasland had a dynamic, slashing playmaker in sophomore point guard Ryan Woolridge but the court had shrunk around him. UNT had shot just 28.3 percent from three in the previous four games, and McCasland needed to create space for his lead guard. As the morning shoot around unfolded, junior guard Michael Miller missed shot after shot. McCasland couldn’t take his eyes off of him. “I saw him staring at me and I was thinking, ‘what’s going on?’” Miller said. What was going on was that McCasland had come up with an idea to fix his team’s sagging offense. The first-year UNT coach called over Jon Trilli, his Director of Basketball Operations, and bounced the idea of him. It was out there. Miller, who had made just three of his 23 three-point attempts, would be given the green light from deep against a tough Coyotes’ defense. And he’d have to shoot them with his right hand, which for most players would go unsaid. Except Miller was a left-handed shooter. Miller was told to switch to his normally non-dominant hand the rest of the shootaround. He immediately made six shots in a row, missed one and then made four more in succession. That’s when McCasland called him over. “I told Mike, ‘here’s the deal: I’m going to start you tonight and I want you to shoot eight three pointers and I don’t care if you make them,’” McCasland said. Miller didn’t hit the quota, but it paid off. That night, he scored 19 points and went 4-5 from three, more than doubling his season output from distance. It helped the Mean Green knock off a 26-win South Dakota team, and started them on the path to a CBI championship. read more: https://www.midmajormadness.com/2018/7/13/17551840/michael-miller-switch-hands-shooting-north-texas-unt-basketball-mean-green-mccasland-cbi-champions

So do we raise a banner? I say yes. For a program with very little success we have to take pride in every championship.

QUICK HITTERS Ryan Woolridge's nine assists gives him 205 dimes on the season. He is now just three assists shy of the tying Walter Johnson's single-season record of 208 in the 1976-77 season. UNT hit 14 3-pointers on the night to extend its single-season program record to 290 made 3-pointers on the season. The 14-for-20 performance marks the fourth-best three-point percentage in a game (73 percent) in program history. The 14 makes ties for the fifth-most in program history and is the most since December 2007. North Texas used some big runs to control the night, as a 14-2 run early on was capped by back-to-back 3-pointers from Jorden Duffy and Michael Miller. Toward the end of the first half, UNT went on a 14-0 run over four-and-a-half minutes to build 42-20 lead. UNT opened game on 13-2 run, Jacksonville State didn't have first field goal until nearly six minutes into the game. At one point in the first half, UNT made 14 of 15 field goal attempts to help spur a 57-point first half in which UNT shot 70 percent from the field and made 10 of 14 shots from beyond the arc. The last time UNT scored 90 or more points against Division I opponents in three straight games was 1997-98. It marks first time since the 1990-91 season that UNT has beaten three straight Division I opponents by scoring 90 points or more. The win marks the Mean Green's third three-game (or more) winning streak of the season, which is the most since 2010-11, when there were also three such streaks. UNT had five players score in double figures - Roosevelt Smart, Jorden Duffy, DJ Draper, Zachary Simmons and Ryan Woolridge - marking the first time since an overtime loss to Western Kentucky on Feb. 15 that the Mean Green have had five or more players reach double figures. The Mean Green shot 71 percent from the charity stripe and are now 11-0 this season when shooting better than 70 percent from the foul line. Read more: http://www.meangreensports.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/032118aaa.html