UNT coach familiar with Tide

[MeanGreen61]

(Vegas has the Tide as 20 point favorites over our Mean Green)

Men's basketball: UNT coach familiar with Tide

08:50 AM CST on Sunday, November 21, 2004

By Brett Vito / Staff Writer

The North Texas men’s basketball team had just finished off a season-opening win over Angelo State on Friday when Johnny Jones spoke to his players about the challenge they will face today at Alabama.

The topic is one UNT’s head coach knows plenty about.

Jones not only played against the Crimson Tide during his career at LSU, he also worked for a year as an assistant coach at the school under current Crimson Tide head coach and longtime friend Mark Gottfried.

The two will face off as coaches when the Mean Green take on a heavily favored Alabama team that is ranked 18th in the Associated Press Top 25 at 3:30 p.m. in Coleman Coliseum.

"Coach Jones told us in the locker room that they put their pants on just like we put ours on," UNT senior forward Michael Jones said Friday night. "We are going to give it everything we’ve got."

The challenge of taking on Alabama is one Johnny Jones is looking forward to facing because of his longstanding friendship with Gottfried.

"I have a great relationship with Mark," Johnny Jones said. "We talk two or three times a month and keep up with each other. We call each other after games and congratulate each other quite often. I am a huge fan of his."

Jones and Gottfried first became acquainted while Jones was an assistant coach at LSU. Gottfried was in the midst of a standout career with Alabama while Jones was working with the Tigers.

Gottfried later became an assistant at UCLA before taking over as the head coach at Murray State.

When Gottfried became the head coach as Alabama, he added Jones to his staff for the 2000-01 season and then helped him land the head coaching job at UNT. Jones is in the midst of trying to build the Mean Green into a small conference powerhouse similar to Gottfried’s old Murray State teams that advanced to two NCAA Tournaments and also played in the NIT one season.

One of the latest moves Jones made to improve his team at UNT was hiring former Alabama administrative assistant coach Kobie Baker as an assistant coach. Baker and Jones worked together under Gottfried.

Baker not only worked at Alabama, he is a Tuscaloosa native whose family still lives in the area.

UNT’s coaches are using some of the philosophies they learned under Gottfried.

"Mark is familiar with the high post offense from his days at UCLA," Jones said. "I learned to work with that offense at Alabama. We use it quite a bit here."

Even though Jones left the Alabama program three years ago, he still has ties with more than just the Crimson Tide coaching staff. Jones helped tutor senior guard Earnest Shelton during his freshman year at Alabama.

Jones’ ties with the Alabama program have allowed him to give insight to his UNT team on what it will be like to play against the Crimson Tide on their home floor.

"There is a great atmosphere there," Jones said. "It’s something the guys should look forward to and have fun with."

Coming away with a win in that charged environment will be a monumental challenge for the Mean Green. Alabama advanced to the Elite 8 in the NCAA Tournament last year and hammered Western Carolina 97-66 in its regular season opener on Friday.

"We will be the underdogs from the start," Michael Jones said. "We are going to go in there with a chip on our shoulder. We want to go in there and try to prove something. We have to bring energy."

UNT showed the ability to play an energetic game Friday in a 100-66 win over Angelo State, a member of the Division II Lone Star Conference, in its season opener. Five UNT players scored in double figures, including Michael Jones and fellow senior Leonard Hopkins who each tallied 16 points.

UNT will need another stellar effort to hang with the Crimson Tide.

"It’s a good game for us early in the season to give us a measuring stick and show us where we are," Jones said. "We need to go and play our hearts out so we can get back on that plane with our heads up and our chests out, knowing that we went in there and played as hard as we could possibly play."

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870.

North Texas (1-0) at Alabama (1-0)

3:30 p.m., Coleman Coliseum, Tuscaloosa, Ala.

KWRD-FM 100.7