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Men's basketball: UNT opens tournament play today

Mean Green face UALR in Sun Belt’s first round

09:24 AM CST on Friday, March 3, 2006

By Brett Vito / Staff Writer

The game seems like it took place months ago now, but it was actually only in late January when North Texas took on South Alabama with the lead in the Sun Belt Conference West Division on the line.

The Mean Green came into the night having won four of their last five, a streak that came to an end with a loss to the Jaguars at home. UNT hasn’t been the same since, losing seven of its last eight conference games.

That skid has left the Mean Green in the unenviable position of playing in the first round of today’s Sun Belt Conference Tournament against Arkansas-Little Rock at 5 p.m.

The game at Middle Tennessee’s Murphy Center in Murfreesboro, Tenn., is the last chance for the Mean Green (14-13) to turn their season around.

“I have gone into every conference game feeling like we have a chance of winning it,” UNT head coach Johnny Jones said. “We have won several and been very close in others. There is no reason for me to feel like we can’t win. We are continuing to improve and are confident.”

UNT enters the event as the No. 5 seed from the Sun Belt West Division and will have to win four games in five days to capture the conference title and an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. UALR is the No. 4 seed from the East Division.

USA is the No. 1 seed from the Sun Belt West and is expected to meet Western Kentucky, the No. 1 seed from the East, in the tourney finals.

UNT won four straight games only once this season, from Dec. 28 to Jan. 5.

“With it being tournament time, we have to put what happened at the end of the season behind us,” UNT senior guard Isaac Hines said. “Coach Jones always says this is a new season. We can’t afford to look at our past, we just have to look at what’s ahead.”

UALR (13-14) has struggled just as much as the Mean Green in the last few weeks, losing its last four regular season games.

UNT enters today’s showdown confident that it knows what it will take to break out of its recent slide with a win over UALR, a team it lost to 69-60 on Jan. 19. Trojans junior forward Rashad Jones-Jennings dominated the teams’ first meeting in Little Rock, Ark., pulling down 19 rebounds.

UALR out-rebounded UNT 52-35 overall. Guards Kendrick Davis and Isaac Hines had six rebounds each to lead the Mean Green, who struggled to match UALR’s size and quickness inside.

The Trojans lead the Sun Belt in scoring defense with an average of 65.4 points allowed per game and average 4.0 more rebounds per game than their opponents.

“We need to keep Jones-Jennings off the boards,” UNT senior center Jeffrey Simpson said. “That’s the key to the game. He’s a good rebounder, but he can be contained just like any other player.”

Jones-Jennings is averaging 12.4 points and 11.6 rebounds a game to lead four UALR players who are averaging double figures in scoring.

Davis has led the Mean Green throughout the season and enters the conference tournament averaging 17.0 points per game. The former Arkansas standout was named the Newcomer of the Year in the Sun Belt earlier in the week.

Simpson is posting 10.8 points per game and is the only other UNT player averaging double figures.

UNT will look to Calvin Watson to complement its inside-outside duo of Davis and Simpson. The junior guard is averaging 9.5 points per game and has been one of the Mean Green’s hottest players of late.

Watson has scored in double figures in six straight games and posted 28 in a win at Troy on Feb. 23 that ended the Mean Green’s six-game slide in the Sun Belt.

UNT is trying to draw confidence from that game, even though it came before a loss to South Alabama to end the regular season

“Winning at Troy gave us a lot of confidence,” Simpson said. “We can feel like we can compete with anyone we play in the tournament.”

UNT is looking to capitalize on that confidence in its last opportunity to turn the season around.

“I’m not going to give up,” Hines said. “We have all the pieces we need to win and we still have time to put it together, if we play like we are capable of playing.”

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com