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2012-13 Men's Basketball Schedule
Download This Year's Season Ticket Info
2012 NIT Season Tip-Off Bracket
DENTON, Texas – North Texas head basketball coach Tony Benford has released the 2012-13 schedule, which is chock full of top-tier
talent and features a home showdown against NCAA Tournament darling and Patriot
League champions Lehigh on Dec. 20.
Benford has the Mean Green slated to potentially play six squads
that finished last season inside the RPI top 110, and 10 games against teams
that reached the postseason in 2011-12. Those teams combined to win seven
postseason games in the NCAA and NIT tournaments. In fact, Lehigh became just
the sixth No. 15 seed to knock off a No. 2 seed when the Mountain Hawks (27-8)
downed Duke, 75-70, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Mean Green, which has averaged 21 victories per season
over the last six years, will host four of those postseason teams in UT
Arlington (Nov. 28), Lehigh (Dec. 20), Middle Tennessee (Jan. 24) and Western
Kentucky (Feb. 7).
“Our philosophy is to play the best teams that college
basketball has to offer,” Benford said. “When you’ve been as good as North
Texas has been over the last few years, and you have a player like Tony Mitchell,
it makes scheduling games a little tougher. Still, we are committed to bringing
our fans top quality opponents that will battle test our players for the Sun
Belt and the NCAA Tournament.”
The Mean Green will play in the NIT Season Tip Off for
the first time in school history, and will be placed in the Manhattan, Kan.
Regional. NT will open against Alabama-Huntsville on Nov. 12, and on Nov. 13 could
potentially play host Kansas State, an NCAA Tournament Third Round squad a year
ago, or Southland Conference champion Lamar, which is led by head coach Pat
Knight. Alabama-Huntsville (29-4) will be the first Division II school to play
in the tournament after advancing to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight last
season.
In non-conference action, North Texas will be taking on a
pair of former Missouri Valley Conference rivals in Creighton (Nov. 9) and St.
Louis (Dec. 5) – and Creighton is slated to make a return trip to the Super Pit
in 2014. Creighton finished the 2011-12 season ranked 19th in the
nation, and advanced to the NCAA Tournament Third Round. The last time North
Texas opened the season against a Division-I opponent was also the last time it
opened on the road – in 2002-03 with a win at Missouri State.
St. Louis, led by head coach Rick Majerus, advanced to the
A-10 title game and the NCAA Tournament Third round.
“Creighton will be a top 10 team and St. Louis and Lehigh will
probably be ranked in the top 25,” Benford said. “Creighton (Doug McDermott) and
Lehigh (C.J. McCollum) both have potential NBA Draft Lottery picks on their
rosters, and these are the types of teams we want to play year-in-year-out.”
On top of facing cross-town rival UT Arlington, NT will also
host Cameron (Nov. 16), Jackson State (Dec. 8) and Southeastern Louisiana
(Dec. 16) at the Super Pit in non-conference games. The Mavericks won the
Southland Conference regular season championship and advanced to the NIT.
With 11 Sun Belt squads, the conference slate will allow fans
to see every SBC team at home as the league transitions to a home-and-home
format in 2012-13. That means a pair of Sun Belt Tournament title game rematches
with Western Kentucky and regular season champion Middle Tennessee.
Your first opportunity to catch the Mean Green in action
will be on Nov. 1 in exhibition action against East Central at 7 p.m. at the
Super Pit.
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