UTEP at North Texas, 8:00 PM Eastern, American Sports Network (check local listings)
Conference play gets underway tonight in Conference USA as the UTR Game of the Day heads to Denton, Texas for the matchup between the UTEP Miners and North Texas Mean Green. UTEP enters tonight’s game at 8-4 overall. Their 74 KenPom rating at 57 BPI rating are second best in Conference USA behind only Old Dominion. The Miners have a very solid neutral court win over Xavier, while 3 of their 4 losses are to teams that have 0 or 1 loss so far (Colorado State, Arizona and Washington). The Miners were one of the preseason favorites to win Conference USA and if they are in fact going to do so and find a way into the NCAA tournament, they need to win games such as the one in Denton tonight.
North Texas has struggled so far this season, holding a record of 6-6 including a very bad home loss last week to Prairie View. While UNT had been our sleeper pick in C-USA heading into the season, only a home win over Creighton has shown us any life in this team at all so far. That can all change as the slate is much wiped clean an phase two of the season starts tonight in their conference opener. While an at-large bid would be virtually impossible for the Mean Green, they certainly have a chance to make some noise in conference play and take a shot at a higher seed on the C-USA tournament. Of course, if they play they way they did against Prairie View, just being one of the top 12 (out of 14) teams in the conference and qualifying for the conference tournament may end up being the goal.