North Texas Fans were excited when Tony Mitchell took the floor for the first time during the first half of the Jackson State game and even with rust on him, he delivered.

In the end he had a double-double, 14 points and 10 rebounds. However, he did more and he did not do it alone.

Head Coach Johnny Jones already had a lot of talent on the floor with Roger Franklin, Alonzo Edwards, Niko Stojiljkovic, Brandon Walton and others. The freshmen class with Chris Jones, Trey Norris and others are proving their worth. The bench play doesn’t fall off a lot when they are in there and at times it appears they maybe better than the opening starters. It all points to the talent level being about the same among the players. This is good. The team was working together, getting better and was going to win a lot of games. They had a shot at the NCAA Tournament this year even though they are young.

However, at this point in the season, the team had no personality, no dominate player, no one that got the team excited, no one to make the other players around them better and most of all no one to get the fans charged up when they walked onto the court. That is what Mitchell has done.   

Now to project the whole season based upon on a good Jackson team win would be wrong. To further project after tonight’s game against Grambling would be irresponsible. The telling game will be against Louisiana State. Until that game all we have is the JSU game to go on.

Against JSU there was chemistry between the team and the fans. The Super Pit is always alive when North Texas plays but it was ALIVE when it was announced Mitchell was going to play. When he stepped onto the court it exploded.

Yes, he got a double-double but his slam dunks got the fans into a frenzy. When he swatted the ball out of the lane the level of excitement went up. The team got into it and Jones would feed him the ball so he could slam the ball through and the excitement level raised the roof. The result was other North Texas players slammed the ball through and the fans responded. Keep this up and Athletic Director Rick Villarreal will have to get engineers in to see if the Super Pit can structurally handle all the noise and excitement. Talk about home team advantage.

Jones ended up with double figure scoring, Franklin and J. Williams came off the bench scoring double figures. Everyone seemed to play better and the result was everyone in the Super Pit felt good about how the team played.

What Mitchell does is put the team over the top and pulls the pieces together. What happens if he has an off game or other teams shut him down? That is the beauty of this team. They have the players to win games with or without him. He makes it a lot easier to win because the team has another dimension. As he has picked the team up, when he has an off day, the team will pick him up. When a team is one dimensional, has one player, shut him down you shut the team down. North Texas is not a one dimensional team, they have starting players and players coming off the bench that can win games. Shut down Mitchell and Jones steps up, Franklin will step up, Kedrick Hogans will step up, Stojiljkovic will step up, Jacob Holmen will step up, Alzee Williams will step up etc.

The only question North Texas fans need to ask; what can this team do when they have the full offensive package in play?