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There is one thing about post season play that is controlled by the NCAA, it gives every team a shot at the big money and a real chance to crown a true National Champion.The BCS in football can only claim to have a mythical national champion basically from a selected pool of teams.
With North Texas going to the Big Dance for the second time in four years, it would be fitting to see where they statically rank in several major categories with the rest of the 334 Division I Basketball Programs. By looking at the numbers it might answer the question, does the Mean Green belong in the NCAA Big Dance?
In doing the comparisons, the rankings of North Texas are compared to the team ranked #1 in each respective category.It does not match the stats of the top ranked team in the nation Kansas.
These are taken from the Official NCAA records updated March 7th. Overall win/loss ratio, North Texas is ranked #47 winning 73.3% of their games. The #1 and #2 teams, Kansas and Kentucky,win 93.5% of their games.
Scoring 74.9 points a game puts the Mean Green nationwide at #56. The #1 team in scoring is VMI putting in 88.6 points a game.
In scoring margin, they are #97 winning by 4.8 points a game while #1 in this category is BYU winning by 18.7 points a game.
Field goal percentage, North Texas comes in at 49 hitting 46.2 % of their shots while the top ranked school in this category is Syracuse hitting 51.5%
When it comes to three point shooting, North Texas is down on the list coming in at 231 hitting 5.6 shots behind the arc while VMI nails 11.6 per game. The percentage of the three pointers the Mean Green try and make find them coming in at 172 hitting 33.9% of their three pointers. Cornell is best at hitting three pointers at 43.4%
North Texas is #74 hitting 71.9% of their free throws while #1 ranked BYU is at 77.9%.
On defense, North Texas comes in at the #215 spot allowing 70.1 points a game and #1 Princeton holds opponents to 52.1 points a game.
Holding opponents to field goal percentage, North Texas ranks #179 allowing opponents to hit 43.2% of their shots. The best in the category is FloridaState allowing opponents only to hit 37.2% of their shots.
North Texas is #71 in the nation in preventing three point shots holding opponents at 31.8%. St. Louis does it best holding opponents at 27.1%
Rebounding finds the Mean Green at #66 garnering 3.6 rebounds a game while Quinnipiac holds the #1 spot with 9.5 rebounds a game.
What this all means is North Texas statically matches up extremely well with a lot of the programs in the country. It is possible when the pairings are announced Sunday, the Mean Green might be facing one of those programs are on this list.
Don’t let anyone fool you, North Texas belongs in the Big Dance.
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