Mean Green

It's getting to that time of year when people start to consider who they are going to vote for on the All-Sun Belt team.

It got me to thinking today, just who are UNT's All-Sun Belt players?

UNT rarely gets the credit it deserves on the all-league team, largely because UNT is -- well, a team. The Mean Green doesn't usually have a guy averaging 20 points a game.

That's the case this year as well. If you look at the Sun Belt stats that came out today, UNT has four players ranked between No. 13 and No. 24 in scoring for the entire season in the Sun Belt -- Tristan Thompson (No. 13 -- 14.3), Josh White (No. 14 -- 14.2), Eric Tramiel (No. 16 -- 12.9) and George Odufuwa (No. 24 -- 11.4).

Thompson is second in the league in scoring during league play at 18.6 points a game.

Odufuwa leads the league in rebounds with an average of 10.4 on the season and 10.8 in league play.

You could make a case for all four players as all-conference types.

It wouldn't surprise me if UNT only gets two on there if things keep going the way they are. There is no way Odufuwa isn't on the team as the leading rebounder in the league and a double-double guy. Thompson should get a spot as well if he doesn't fall off dramatically in terms of his scoring average.

It wouldn't surprise me to see White bumped off. He has changed his game to fit UNT's needs for a full-time playmaker, which impresses the heck out of me, considering his is a scorer by nature. He might get bumped off, though, since he isn't scoring at the rate of guys like Brandon Hazzard of Troy and AJ Slaughter of Western Kentucky.

Tramiel might be the best power forward in the league, but being hurt for part of the year will hurt him.

Put those guys together and I don't know if there is a better core four in the league. Throw in glue guy Shannon Shorter, and this team has a great starting five.

It should be interesting to see how many of them are recognized for their contributions to making that group maybe the best in the league.

A big win for the North Texas athletic department kind of got lost over the weekend with the men's basketball team continuing its hot streak, the women's basketball team continuing its slide, former UNT lineman Brian Waters being named NFL Man of the Year and the Super Bowl going on.

UNT beat Texas Tech in tennis.

Tennis doesn't rank real high as far as interest goes for UNT fans, but it is worth noting when UNT beats a Big 12 team in anything.

UNT has been building toward being ranked among the top 75 teams in the country since Sujay Lama came on a few years ago. Lama is proving to be one of the best hires UNT has made in the Rick Villarreal era.

Lama had skins on the way at the major college level when he got here and has built a competitive program pretty quickly. He's had a new facility to recruit to, which he says has helped matters quite a bit.

UNT actually has had some success against Tech historically. UNT has rarely beat Big 12 teams in major sports through the years, but did knock off the Red Raiders in football when Darrell Dickey was at UNT a few years back.

It's a nice win for UNT any way you look at it.