Founding and former Sun Belt Conference member the University of New Orleans is making a trip to Denton to take on North Texas.

UNO was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina and as a result lost students which forced a drastic cut in the athletic department. One of the cuts was to move UNO from a Division I to a Division III program. As a result, UNO left the Sun Belt on June 30, 2010 to compete as a Division I Independent. They will be joining the Gulf South Conference in 2012 as a Division II after a financial analysis stated they did not have to drop to Division III.

Under new Head Coach Mark Slessinger the Privateers are off to a 9-4 start. They are loaded with upper classmen with five seniors and seven juniors on the 18 man roster. They have no hilltoppers with the tallest player #10 Antonio Wertz, F, 6-7, Sr. They have two 6-6 forwards.

With all the changes in the program a lot of the players did not understand the history of the program. So, Slessinger had to teach his players about the Privateers history. According to the coach, the players did not know UNO had produced seven NBA players and have been to four NCAA Division I basketball tournaments.Most of the trophies and the memorabilia were destroyed in the hurricane.

He is working on establishing pride in the program. “We felt like our No. 1 goal was re-establishing our pride in the program [and] pride in the university.”

The players are ball handlers that take care of the ball and are +4.7 in turnovers per game. They also are good at stealing the ball getting 10.5 steals a game to 6.8 for opponents.

Slessinger likes to “push the ball up the court” so he uses a lot of players to keep his players fresh and to try to wear down opponents. He also believes by using a lot of players if one player is off his game there is another player to step in his place and the team does not lose any efficiency.

Their season got off to a rough start with a big loss to New Mexico 40-92 and Rice 49-83 before they got their first win. They rattled off three wins before falling to San Diego 56-64 and Tulane 53-72. They are now on a four game winning streak with their last win against North Alabama 81-63. All four of their losses have come against Division I programs.

UNO is led by #32 Lovell Cook, F, 6-6, Jr. with 13.3 points a game and #10 Antonio Wertz, F, 6-7, Sr., comes in second with 12.5 points a game. Last year, Wertz led the team in scoring with 11.6 points a game. Cook is coming into the North Texas game as the Louisiana Sports Writers “Player of the Week” for his career high 21 points against North Alabama.

They are not a selfish team and pretty well share the ball with #0 Brandon Knight, G, 6-0, Sr., #4 Gennerra Varmall, G, 6-0, Jr., #2 Darrell Williams, G, 5-9, Jr., and Wertz having 13 assists each and #3 Ralensee Nelson, G, 5-8, Jr. with 12.

Varmall, Wertz, Knight and Williams each have 13 steals.

Wertz leads the team with 42 offensive and 71 defensive rebounds for a total of 113 or 8.7 a game. Cook is second on the team with a total of 57 or 4.4 a game.

The Privateers are outscoring their opponents 66.4 to 59.8 points a game for a +6.5 scoring margin. However, they are hitting only .397% from the field while giving up .423% to opponents. From downtown they are hitting 4.5 of their shots per game. They have tried 221 three point attempts and put in a total of 59.

Because they are not a tall team, rebounding has been a negative for them and are out-rebounded -4.6 times per game. It also is the reason they are blocked for an average of 4.2 shots a game while they have only swatted out 2.7 shots per game.

Look for Head Coach Johnny Jones to have his players blocking out Wertz in order to stop his knack for rebounding the ball and have tight defensive coverage on Cook to slow down his scoring.

This should be a game where Tony Mitchell can get some crowd pleasing slam dunks. It should also be a game where Niko Stojiljkovic and Mitchell should swat several balls away from the rim. Chris Jones should have a nice game putting the ball in the basket as well as a game where he can pass the ball off so other players can get some points.

While UNO has struggled with Division I teams and been blown out in some, they have gotten better with each opponent. They are like mites and will have North Texas running up and down the court. Fans will be watching a fast paced game and should be prepared to see some North Texas players huffing and a puffing if not in shape. Since UNO likes a fast paced game, North Texas needs to slow it down and control the pace or they might get run out of The Super Pit.