Thinking about Tony Mitchell's Legacy

Harry · March 21, 2013

Benford believes that when Mitchell gets into pre-draft workouts, he will soar up the draft boards, and he’s probably right. Mitchell has a terrific skill set and off-the-charts athleticism.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Mitchell is taken in the first round. Even if he isn’t, there is a good chance he will go on to have a successful NBA career.

That alone could help change the perception of UNT basketball. If Mitchell shows up on TV as a UNT product night after night, no one will remember that he didn’t lead UNT to the NCAA tournament.

Rick Villarreal talked yesterday about the way in which Mitchell represented the university with class. That is something I will remember as well. Mitchell was always polite and almost always willing to talk.

He dove into university life, joined a fraternity and seemed like a regular student.

Mitchell handled himself well considering the attention he garnered. He was under a ton of pressure to be great for UNT.

He might not have lived up to some people’s expectations — or even his own — but he handled the pressure well and brought UNT a ton of attention. Mitchell was in Sports Illustrated and on the cover of Basketball Times.

That is the type of attention UNT has rarely received.

UNT has not had a player drafted since John Horrocks in 1984.

Mitchell will likely break that streak.

It’s all a part of a great legacy Mitchell will leave at UNT. It wasn’t the legacy he had hoped for when he arrived in Denton, but it is one that Mitchell can be proud of.

Read more: http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2013/03/thinking-about-tony-mitchells-legacy.html/

GrandGreen · March 22, 2013

I agree with the above. In a lot of ways Tony was the victim of his own success. Some of us expected superman and all we got was a very talented player.

As a freshman he was all conference and should have been MVP. In NT's membership in the Belt there were only two other first team all conference members and they were both upperclassmen Chris Davis and Tristan Thompson.

I commented at the beginning of the season that Mitchell could be the best player ever at NT as well as this could be the best team in NT history. Both of those predictions fail well short but the prognostication on Tony was much closer. There have been a lot of players at NT with better careers but none with anymore physical ability and none that have brought near as much exposure to the basketball program.

foutsrouts · March 22, 2013

Wow. I never knew that Horrocks was drafted, but they had more rounds back then. I guess he was a Jon Koncak type hopeful at the time. On the subject of the thread, I have no doubt that TM will make it. Just how big he makes it will likely depend on his offensive development down low. Best of luck Tony.