CBS Sports Sun Belt Preview

[MeanGreen61]

What awaits the Sun Belt over the next four and a half months should amount to a special year in this conference. Yeah, you see small leagues get lucky every now and then and have a star with NBA potential. Sometimes the player is good enough to be a lottery pick, like Damian Lillard in the Big Sky last season.

But it is ridiculously rare that a talent like Tony Mitchell is playing college hoops at the Sun Belt level. He is No. 7 on our Top 100, and many think he's the best combination of talent and athleticism playing in college basketball today -- better than anyone at Kentucky, Carolina, UCLA or Kansas. And he's living life at North Texas. Huh? Well, Mitchell initially committed to Missouri but was ultimately ruled academically ineligible and landed at North Texas, where he eventually started his career last December.

North Texas will be an interesting team to watch this season beyond Mitchell (14.7 points and 10.3 rebounds per game last season), who is a near-guarantee to win Player of the Year in the league and earn a spot on national All-American teams. The school lost its coach, Johnny Jones, to LSU. So Mitchell and new coach Tony Benford (former Marquette assistant) will be league favorites thanks to help from Chris Jones, a solid fellow sophomore. He'll run the 1. Oklahoma State transfer Roger Franklin Jr., academically cleared forward Justin Patton and long-bomber Jordan Williams fill out what is one of the most formidable favorites of any mid-major league.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/20573576/college-basketball-previews-with-nba-prospect-tony-mitchell-north-texas-is-favored-in-sun-belt