North Texas (7-6) vs. UALR (3-10)
Denton, Texas • The Super Pit (10,500)
Dec. 29, 2011 • 7:00 p.m. CST
Radio: 88.1 KNTU-FM, 100.7 KWRD-FM
• George Dunham, Hank Dickenson
TV: NTTV (Denton Charter 22, Verizon 42)
Live Stats & Webcast
Series: UALR leads 15-8 • Last: UALR 64-63 on 3/8/11
Game Notes

DENTON, Texas - In a Sun Belt Tournament title game for the ages, Soloman Bozeman hit a 3-pointer with 1.5 seconds left to lift UALR to a 64-63 win over North Texas back on March 8, dashing the Mean Green’s hopes of a second straight conference championship and NCAA Tournament berth.

On Thursday night, the new-look Mean Green (7-6) gets their first opportunity to face the Trojans – a squad NT has beaten in four straight regular season meetings.

If recent history is any indication, fans are in for an edge-of-their-seat game when North Texas and UALR tip it off on Thursday. Since joining the Sun Belt in 2000-01, 10 of the 19 meetings between these two schools have either been decided in overtime or by less than five points. As a matter of fact, seven of the last nine games have been decided by five points or less.

North Texas is 7-4 in Sun Belt openers since entering the league in 2000-01, including wins the last three openers. Last year, NT took an 81-69 win over UALR at the Super Pit on Dec. 30.  Since 2006-07, North Texas is 65-39 (62.5 percent) against Sun Belt foes.

Since 2006-07, North Texas has the best win percentage among Sun Belt Conference teams at 65.9 (116-60), and trails only Western Kentucky by a single victory over that span.

North Texas head coach Johnny Jones is nearing his 200th career win. Including his stay as the interim head coach at Memphis in 1999-00, Jones is 194-154 (55.7 percent). Jones, in his 11th year at NT, has won at least 20 games in each of the last five seasons and has taken the Mean Green to three of the last five Sun Belt Tournament finals.