The Mean Green Are Going Dancing

-Ted Hall

The University of North Texas is going to the big dance, but before I start into March Madness (there’s a lot to talk about), I want to issue a short rebuttal to Mark’s latest entry to NT Balls.

Mark said in his last article about the Mavs’ season:

…the Mavericks have one key factor, something they’ve never had since Cuban bought them. They’ve got respect.

On ESPN2’s First and 10 last week, Skip Bayless and his black co-star du jour both ranked the Mavericks the two spot in their NBA power rankings (one behind the Suns and the other behind the Spurs). Eric Neel wrote a column about the Mavs titled, “Mavs just can’t win my love,” pointing out their supposed lack of star power. John Hollinger’s power rankings (also on ESPN.com) have the Mavs perpetually in the two slot behind either the Spurs or Suns. And last night, after the Mavs’ 17-game win streak was broken by Don Nelson and the Warriors on Monday (the second game of a back-to-back in California, by the way), Stan Verrett had this to say to kick off the Sportscenter Minute: “Move over, Mavericks. The Spurs are the hottest team in the NBA.”

Respect? R-E-S-P-E-C-T? Ms. Franklin and I beg to differ.

The national media has absolutely no respect for the Mavs. At the All-Star Break, the Dallas Mavericks’s record ranked in the top five all-time at that point in the season. The other teams included in that ranking were the ’96 Bulls, ’97 Bulls, ’83 76ers and ’86 Celtics. Those, if you’re not familiar with basketball or history or America, are four of the greatest teams of all time. All. Time. Jordan. Bird. All four of those teams won championships. The ’86 Celtics, in fact, boast one of the greatest lineups of all time: Bird, two other Hall of Fame inductees in Robert Parish and Kevin McHale, and another potential Hall of Famer in the recently deceased Dennis Johnson. How do you think the Media and the rest of America ranks Nowitzki-Howard-Terry-Harris-Dampier compared to these teams? We should be talking about how the Mavs could turn out to be one of the greatest teams of all time, if we think they can sweep every opponent in the playoffs and how Nowitzki is a guaranteed Hall of Famer, but instead, the Spurs are “the hottest team in the NBA” and the Suns are the “real” power in the West.

The Dallas Mavericks are 3-1 combined against the Spurs and Suns. Respect? Yeah, right. I guess we’ll see when the Suns and Mavericks play tonight.

Ok, enough hate! On to North Texas Basketball! Oh… did I say, “enough hate”? I meant, “much, much more hate”.

It’s been a very exciting time for all fans* of the NT cagers. Winning the Sun Belt Conference Championship as a 5-seed was very impressive. Doing so by beating an Arkansas State team which had defeated them twice this season was heroic. Winning the last three games without an influenza’d Kendrick Davis was something I would have never guessed could happen. Ok, he only had the flu for the game against Middle Tennessee State, but the game after that, he was obviously still recovering and the game before… well, he just didn’t show up (1-18 in 42 minutes).

*-Mark is not included in the category of ‘fan’. He couldn’t manage to drive 20 minutes to Lewisville to watch the game against MTSU on television (the only bar I could find with the game was the Fox and Hound, an overpriced English-style pub) and left our watch party during the second half of the Sun Belt Championship Game to look for a cat. The cat came back the very next day. They thought it was a goner, but the cat came back. Maybe this site should be called Texas Ranger Balls, because that’s all that seems to interest Mark Moseley.

The biggest surprise of the tournament, though, was the play of Ben Bell. The kid was amazing. Not to say he played well as a point guard, because he does not have this ability, but Bell sank clutch shot after clutch shot in the last three games. Without Kendrick Davis to defer to, he was creating his own shots, driving to the lane, drawing fouls and hitting his open jump shots: a complete transformation. I guess we’ll see if he can keep that up on Friday.

Calvin “It’s Elementary, My Dear” Watson had a great tournament, too. He averaged 17 points per game and was named Tournament MVP after sinking six three-pointers and scoring 24 total in the Championship game against Arkansas State.

My special awards all go to Johnny Jones. Apparently, during the last practice before heading down to Lafayette, Jones brought out a ladder and a pair of scissors. Johnny Jones then had the entire Mean Green basketball team practice cutting down the nets in the EagleLair. If I had seen this, in addition to bursting into inspired tears, I would have never had any doubt at all that North Texas would be Sun Belt Champs. I actually might have written that they would win the national title. But that was before they were seeded against Memphis.

So, I guess what you’re all waiting for is my NCAA tournament preview and how the North Texas Mean Green will go about defeating the two-seeded Memphis Tigers. The Tigers (currently on a 22-game win streak) went undefeated in Conference USA – not a major conference by any means, but certainly more competitive than the Sun Belt. Memphis only has two quality wins (against Kentucky and Gonzaga) and I don’t consider either of those teams real contenders. That would be an indicator that we’d have a chance except that Memphis’ only three losses come against three teams (Arizona, Tennessee and Georgia Tech) that each could beat NT 99 out of 100 times. That’s not even taking into account that North Texas didn’t even play a quality game, much less garner a quality win. The most challenging opponent we faced all season was a weak 17-win Nebraska team, which beat us by 19 points.

I thought the Mean Green could win the Sun Belt Tourney because they had the heart and seemed to have the desire, but I don’t think heart is going to be enough this time. The Tigers have some size; North Texas has Justin Howerton (1.8 ppg!). The Eagles are at their best when they play a fast-paced, run and gun style of basketball; Memphis is too, and they’re much, much better at it. One tournament preview said that if North Texas tries to run against Memphis, the Tigers will run them out of New Orleans Arena. Bryan Cole, a friend of mine from Tulane, has seen his Green Wave play Memphis several times over the past four years. This year, Tulane played Memphis twice and was annihilated both times, losing one game by 44 points. When I suggested that UNT might have a chance against Memphis, he just laughed, then suggested that the Mean Green would probably match up better against Ohio State. Whether that’s true or not, I can’t say, but I’m beginning to believe that Johnny Jones’ boys don’t stand a chance this weekend in New Orleans.

I hate to be Debbie Downer (I’d rather be Sensual Sally…mmmm), but if North Texas plays the best game of its season and Memphis plays the very worst of theirs, I don’t think they pull this one out. But if North Texas plays the greatest game in the history of the school and Memphis plays the worst in the history of theirs, we might have a chance. If North Texas is firing on all cylinders; if Ben Bell, Calvin Watson, Kendrick Davis, Keith Wooden, Michael Sturns, Rich Young and Quincy Williams all have the game of their respective lives, we certainly have a chance. If Memphis’ starting lineup commits the common rookie error of consuming more than two Hand Grenades at Tropical Isle, we might just get that win.

And when we get that win, after the Tigers all come down with Kendrick Davis’ three-day flu, we’ll move on to the Field of 32 where we’ll face Creighton or Nevada.

Then we’ll definitely lose.

Notes:
Check out this article about Rich Young. “Oh. So that’s why they kept calling him 'the Marine'.”