DENTON (12/22/06) Clutch performances have become the norm for the Mean Green basketball team this season, which returns home for a matinee match against Jarvis Christian today at 2 p.m.
North Texas (8-3, 1-1) jumped to 84 in the official RPI Ratings following the 86-85 win over Sun Belt rival Western Kentucky, which came down to a Keith Wooden lay-up with just over five seconds remaining.
NT, now 2-1 against the RPI’s top 100 teams, has gotten to this point with gritty performances in the closing minutes of tight games.
When it comes down to the wire, North Texas has been clutch all season. NT holds a 4-2 record in games decided by four points or less in 2006-07 - compared to 2-4 last year.
In the final two minutes of those six games, Michael Sturns and Calvin Watson have combined for 33 of the team’s 53 points, and the team as a whole is shooting 51.4 percent from the floor.
Wooden alone is shooting 66.7 percent during clutch time in his first season in a Mean Green uniform.
The win at Western Kentucky was not only North Texas’ first victory over the Hilltoppers in eight tries, but it also marks only the second time a Sun Belt team has won at E.A. Diddle Arena in the last three seasons.
Not only has North Texas never faced Jarvis Christian (8-2, 1-1 in RRAC), but it has also never played a current Red River Athletic Conference (NAIA Div. I) team in the regular season. The Mean Green faced RRAC member Texas College in exhibition play earlier this season, topping the Steers 92-71.
NT owns a 2-0 record against UT-Permian Basin, which moved from the RRAC to NCAA Div. II’s Heartland Conference for the 2006-07 season.
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