Middle Tennessee 20-3 brings it record to Denton to take on North Texas in Sun Belt Conference action. This game is extremely important for both teams. MTSU is coming off a very disappointing loss at Vanderbilt. North Texas is coming into the game winning at home against Arkansas State giving North Texas Head Coach Johnny Jones his 200^th coaching win.

The Blue Raiders are close to breaking into one of the top 25 teams in the nation and their loss against Vanderbilt kept them out of the polls. They are still getting votes for being a top 25 team and will be looking for redemption when they take on North Texas. Its a game that should propel them into the 25 with a win.

LaRon Dendy, F, 6-9, 235, R-Sr., is the man for MTSU. The four star committed and played at Iowa State before transferring to MTSU. He is averaging 14 points a game and second in rebounds with 6.8 per game. Most of his rebounds have been on the defensive side of the ball with 5.8 per game. Last week he became the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week ending the three in a row won by North Texas' Tony Mitchell.

Here is a video of Dendy in action from YouTube. It starts slow with him practicing before it shows him in action. Laron Dendy Highlights.

Dendy one of the transfers contributing to the successful season. Bruce Massey transferred in from Dodge City Community College. Coming in from Mississippi Gulf Coast Junior College is Raymond Cintron the leading 3 pointer shooter for the 23 games hitting .412 shots from outside. Finally Chipola Junior College is Marcos Knight the second leading scorer on the team.

Four of the top eight percentage shooters in the Sun Belt are on MTSU. JT Sulton is third, Shawn Jones is fourth, Dendy is sixth and Marcos Knight. Sulton is second on the team in scoring.

MTSU has won 16 games by double figures, winning by 12.3 points a game. They are seventh in the nation in field goal percentage hitting 49.5% of their shots. Their defense is 15^th in the nation allowing opponents only 38.4% of their field goals from going in. Opponents score 60.3 points per game. They are only the eighth team in the nation to have 20 wins so far this season.

The hallmark of the team is defense getting 7.4 steals a game to 6.5. They average 13.9 turnovers per game while forcing opponents into 15.6 turnovers. They outrebound their opponents to 35.2 to 33.1 per game.

North Texas is still trying to get things together after the loss of two of their top two scorers to grades. While it looked like the shoulders of Tony Mitchell needed to broaden because of the losses as it looked like everything was going to fall on him. However, other players around him are stepping up and some injured players are back. With one game under their belts playing together in its present complement of players, the team did not have much playing time together. The game against MTSU will tell Jones where his team is and where it is going.