University of Nice Try??

mgsteve · January 6, 2004

Mean Green Becomes Lean Green - Sunday, January 4, 2004

Arkansas Defense Smothers North Texas In Rout

By Jerry L. Reed

The Morning News/RazorbackCentral.net•jreed@nwaonline.net

FAYETTEVILLE -- Poor North Texas. Officially, poor University of North Texas. Poor UNT.

Poor University of No Turnovers, which failed miserably to earn that reputation here Saturday afternoon -- it had 23 -- in Bud Walton Arena.

Nope, it wasn't even the University of Nice Try.

Because ...

North Texas walked straight into an Arkansas vegamatic defense and got chopped to itsy-bitsy pieces.

Intimidation. Altered shots. Blocked shots. Constant steals.

That was the norm as the Men of Pig destroyed the Mean Green 96-61 in front of 14,009 appreciative fans.

Man, that's got to hurt. That's going to leave a mark.

Banged, bruise and humiliated, North Texas loaded up its team bus and headed back to Denton, Texas, with its seventh loss in 11 basketball games.

Why?

"If you look at our defensive intensity from the Western Carolina game (a 62-59 overtime loss in Bud Walton Arena on Dec. 22), it's just been defensive minded," said Razorbacks senior guard Charles Tatum. "I think that's exactly what we have to do if we want to win games in the Southeastern Conference. We are tuning up for LSU (on Tuesday in the SEC opener at home). We're just getting ready. We used these last two games (against Western Carolina and an 81-74 win at Tulsa last Tuesday).

"We just used the last two games to get ready when the games really count."

It really counted Saturday when the Hogs forced those 23 turnovers and had 8 blocked shots in a laugher.

Yeah, Arkansas forward Rashard Sullivan was smiling.

He shined those pearly whites when he blocked 2 shots and scored 6 points, grabbed 3 rebounds and had 1 steal.

"Really, our defense is what got us going," Sullivan said. "It led to turnovers, which led to scoring. Everyone did a good job. A lot of guys came out with their A-games."

Razorbacks senior forward Billy Pharis definitely said an amen goes there.

"Our guards we were just really pressuring them," Pharis said. "That was a big difference early on. We really fed off that pressure. If they threw it inside, Rashard was doing a good job of getting position. If a guy drove to the basket, he took charges and was blocking shots.

"It worked out for us."

That bodes well for the Southeastern Conference schedule which begins Tuesday at home against LSU.

"Absolutely," Pharis said. "That's what we talked about. We had to get better in these last two nonconference games. They were tests to get us ready for the SEC. We felt if we did really well today, you know, we felt like that would get us ready, along with two good practices, for Tuesday night."

Razorbacks guard Kendrick Davis said that's fair warning. And Arkansas, if it plays defense the way it did Saturday, could rough some SEC teams up if they don't take them seriously.

Pity the fool.

"We were trying to set the tone and let everyone in our conference know that we are for real," Davis said. "(Arkansas point guard) Eric (Ferguson) and (Razorbacks freshman swingman) Ronnie (Brewer) got us going. Ronnie has those long arms and he's very active and Eric is just an outstanding defender."

In the first half alone, Ferguson and Brewer ignited an Arkansas defense that produced 14 North Texas turnovers. Half of them were created by Ferguson (4) and Brewer (3).

"That's why they are so successful," Davis said. "They know how to play defense. You could tell that early on."

Brewer said that was in the gameplan.

"We wanted to be aggressive on defense," Brewer said. "We wanted to pressure the ball and try and get some steals. We just went out there in practice, and then in the game, and worked on it to make it happen."

North Texas believes it did.

Edited January 6, 2004 by mgsteve

UNTFan23 · January 6, 2004

Please tell me this wasn't in a newspaper. Please tell me it was a commentary piece. I know the team has really struggled ...

It doesn't even read very smoothly, IMHO ... and extremely one-sided.

North Texas believes it did.

Hard to tell, no one from the Mean Green was interviewed.

Edited January 6, 2004 by UNTFan23

Greenblood94 · January 6, 2004

The story was on Razorbackcentral.com, which is a website devoted to (but not produced by) Arkansas Razorback athletics. Razorbackcentral.com is owned by the Stephens Media Group, which is based in Las Vegas, and owns many newspapers, including the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Herald Democrat in Sherman, 15 papers in Arkansas, and papers in Hawaii, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Washington state. They also run or are in partnership with about 12 Web portal sites.

I'm not sure if the story actually appeared in print, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.