WICHITA STATE (17-11, 7-8) at NORTH TEXAS (21-6, 12-3)
Monday, March 3 | 8:00 p.m. CDT
Denton, Texas | The Super Pit
 
TV: ESPN2 with Tom Hart & Dane Bradshaw
Radio: KEYN 103.7 FM with Mike Kennedy & Bob Hull
 

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OPENING TIPS
• Wichita State opens a two-game Texas road trip with a stop in Denton to face the second-place North Texas Mean Green Monday night on ESPN2.
• North Texas won the first matchup on Jan. 29 in Wichita, 58-54. That was the last loss before WSU's win streak.
• Wichita State won six straight conference games for the first time since March of 2021. After going 1-7 in January, Wichita State went 6-1 in February.
• The six-game win streak matched the longest of the Paul Mills era.
• The Shockers are outrebounding their last 7 opponents, 300-216, for an average of +12.0 per game.
• Xavier Bell was named the American Athletic Conference Player of the Week on Feb. 24 after averaging 23.5 points per game on 92.9% shooting at the free throw line. Bell and Corey Washington are the first Shocker teammates to win AAC POW honors since 2021.
• Washington tallied his 8th double-double of the season with a 24-point, 11-rebound effort vs. UAB. His 24 points set a new season high. It was his third 20-point game of the season.
• Bijan Cortes has played the best basketball of his career over the last four games which included back-to-back career highs of 13 points vs. Memphis and 16 points at FAU. He followed that with a 9-assist game vs. Tulane.
• Cortes is averaging 11.5 points and 6.5 assists over his last four games.
• Bell has scored 10 or more in each of the last 6 games and 18 of the last 20 games. In conference play he is averaging 16.5 points.
• Quincy Ballard's 9 double-doubles are second most in the American and the most by a Shocker since Garrett Stutz in 2011-12. Eight of those 9 have come in the last 17 games. Ballard's 76.6 effective FG Pct. leads the nation.
• Ronnie DeGray III returned to action on Jan. 14 after missing nearly two months with a fractured wrist. He scored all 8 of his points vs. Charlotte in the 2nd half.
• Wichita State has a trio of 1,000-point scorers on the roster. Xavier Bell reached 1,000 career points on Dec. 17 vs. Kansas City and Harlond Beverly made it to 1,000 on Jan. 14 vs. Charlotte. Justin Hill has more than 1,500 career points.
• Ballard ranks 2nd in the American in blocks per game (1.81) and ranks 33rd nationally. His 49 total blocks also rank 2nd in the AAC, while ranking 42nd in the NCAA.
• Ballard moved into 3rd on the Wichita State career blocks list vs. Memphis with 137. He's on pace to break the WSU career record for blocks per game at 1.93.
• Eight student-athletes on Wichita State's roster have NCAA Tournament experience: Quincy Ballard (Florida St.), Xavier Bell (Drexel), Harlond Beverly (Miami), Ronnie DeGray III (Missouri), Justin Hill (Longwood), AJ McGinnis (UNCG), Zane Meeks (San Francisco) and Corey Washington (St. Peter's).

THE SERIES WITH NORTH TEXAS
• Wichita State leads the all-time series 26-14. This is just the fourth time the schools have met on the hardwood since December, 1982 when the Shockers defeated North Texas in the championship game of the McDonald's Shocker Classic.
• North Texas recorded its first-ever American Athletic Conference win in the conference opener a year ago in Charles Koch Arena.
• The Mean Green led by 12 at halftime, and by as many as 20 in the second half.
• Aaron Scott, a current forward at St. John's, scored a game-high tying 18 points to lead the Mean Green. Colby Rogers scored 18 points for Wichita State.
• In 2021, North Texas came into Charles Koch Arena on Dec. 18 and handed the Shockers a 62-52 loss, snapping a six-game home win streak vs. the Mean Green.
• Wichita State led by seven at halftime only to see North Texas outscore the Shockers 35-18 in the second half.
• Tylor Perry scored a game-high 23 points behind a 10-of-10 night at the free throw line.
• Morris Udeze scored 17 points and Craig Porter Jr. added 12 in a losing effort for the Shockers.
• At that time North Texas was led by Grant McCasland who spent five years at Baylor as an assistant coach with Paul Mills.
• The schools were Missouri Valley Conference rivals from 1957 to 1975.
• The Shockers have won six of the last eight against North Texas in Wichita and are 16-5 all-time.
• The most-impressive of the three Mean Green wins came in 1963 over a Shocker team that came in ranked No. 8 nationally, 69-67.
• North Texas' last win at the Roundhouse came in the semifinals of the 1982 McDonald's Classic over District Columbia. Robert Lewis' putback at the buzzer gave the Mean Green an exciting 74-73 victory.
• North Texas' last appearance came the following day in the championship game. Zarko Durisic scored a career-high 30 points and the Shockers edged the Mean Green, 78-72.
• The Shockers are 10-8 against North Texas in Denton but are winless at the Super Pit (est. 1973-Pr.).
• Wichita State's last visit actually came during the 1976 NCAA tournament when the Shockers lost to 14^th-ranked Michigan, 74-73, on Rickey Green's 20-foot jumper with six seconds to play.

OTHER MEMORABLE SERIES MOMENTS:
• Feb. 2, 1961 – Gene Wiley recorded the first 20-20 game in Shocker history, finishing with 32 points and 21 rebounds in a 105-58 win.
• Mar. 1, 1962 – The Shockers set a new single-game scoring mark in a 110-69 victory. The record held for over two years.
• Feb. 6, 1971 – Terry Benton grabbed a school-record 29 rebounds in an 84-81 win at Levitt Arena.
• Dec. 4, 1982 – In the most-recent matchup between the schools, Zarko Durisic scored a career-high 30 points and the Shockers edged the Mean Green, 78-72, in the McDonald's Classic title game.

CONNECT THE DOTS
• Bijan Cortes and North Texas senior guard Matthew Stone played high school basketball together at Kingfisher High School in Kingfisher, Okla. The duo started all four years together and led Kingfisher to a 107-4 record over four years, winning the 4A Oklahoma State Championship in 2019 and 2021. They were the prohibitive favorites to win it in 2020, but COVID canceled the state tournament the day it was supposed to begin.
• Their 96.4% winning percentage is the best four-year win percentage for any boys team in Oklahoma history.
• North Texas also has a pair of student-athletes, Johnathan Massie and Ma'Syn Howell, that attended Houston's Legacy School of Sport Sciences, which produced current Wichita State freshman guard Zion Pipkin.

SCOUTING NORTH TEXAS
• Led by second year head coach Ross Hodge, North Texas enters the contest at 21-6 overall and 12-3 in league play.
• Hodge was named a finalist for the Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year Award, which is given to the nation's best rookie head coach. He was the only rookie head coach to lead his respective team to either the NCAA Tournament or NIT last season.
• Hodge was UNT's associate head coach for the previous six seasons prior to being promoted to head coach in the spring of 2023. He was a two-time junior college head coach from 2006-11 at Paris JC and then Midland JC.
• In his six seasons at UNT, Hodge has helped lead the Mean Green to a combined 135-65 overall record and 71-35 record in conference games. North Texas won the 2020 Conference USA regular season championship, 2021 Conference USA Tournament championship and 2022 Conference USA regular season title. In 2021, UNT earned an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament where they received a program-best No. 13 seeding. In the first round they upset Purdue, 78-69 (ot), for the program's first-ever NCAA Tournament win.
• Hodge has won 22 league games through his first two seasons at the helm. No UNT head coach has won as many league games in their first two seasons as Hodge.
• North Texas' roster this season features 10 newcomers (7 transfers and 3 freshmen). The Mean Green lost their top six scorers from last season and four starters. Moulaye Sissoko is the team's top returning scorer (103 points) and is its only returning starter (34 starts). UNT returned just 10 percent of its scoring from last season.
• North Texas has already clinched a top-four seed and a double-bye in the American Athletic Conference Championship. They remain just one game back of first place Memphis in the American standings and sit in a tie for second with UAB.
• The Mean Green have featured one of the nation's top defenses over the last five seasons. Since 2020, North Texas is giving up an average just 59.2 points per game. Only Houston is giving up fewer points per game over the last five seasons combined (58.0).
• Atin Wright leads a balanced scoring attack with a team-best 13.6 points per game. Wright leads the nation in free throw percentage at 95.0%.
• Brenen Lorient is the only other Mean Green averaging double figures at 12.1 points per game.
• Moulaye Sissoko grabs a team-best 6.6 rebounds to go with 7.9 points. Sissoko had 16 points and 6 rebounds in the first meeting in Wichita on Jan. 29.
• North Texas sports the top ranked defense in the American, allowing just 58.9 points per game. That ranks 2nd nationally.
• The Mean Green rank 1st in the American in scoring defense, scoring margin and three-point defense, and 2nd in field goal percentage defense, fouls per game, free throw percentage and turnover margin.
• UNT averages 60.7 possession per 40 minutes this season. That's the most deliberate tempo in the AAC and 3rd most deliberate tempo in the nation. Their average offensive possession length is 20.9 seconds, which is the 2nd longest in the nation. On average UNT defends a possession for 18.1 seconds, which is the 2nd longest in the AAC.

MILESTONE WATCH
• Quincy Ballard is 13 blocks away from 150 in his Wichita State career. He played his 100th career game on Jan. 29 vs. North Texas.
• Xavier Bell is nine games away from 150 career games.
• Harlond Beverly played his 150th career game on Feb. 23 vs. Tulane.
• Bijan Cortes is 44 assists away from 300 for his career. He played in his 100th career game on Jan. 18 vs. East Carolina.
• Ronnie DeGray III played his 100th career game on Feb. 9 at South Florida.
• Justin Hill is 7 assists shy of 500 for his career. He needs 2 more games to reach his 150th career game.
• AJ McGinnis is 51 points away from reaching 1,000 for his career.

KILLER B
• Bijan Cortes has been a catalyst for Wichita State in Wichita State's last three wins vs. #14 Memphis, Florida Atlantic and Tulane, which you could make a case as being the three biggest wins of the season. In those three victories, Cortes averaged 12.0 points and 6.7 assists. He put up a career-high 16 points and dished seven assists at Florida Atlantic, one game after he set a new career high with 13 points vs. Memphis. Against Tulane he finished one assist shy of a career high with 9.
• Cortes' improved play during this six-game win streak could not have come at a better time with Justin Hill essentially missing each of those six games. Hill returned from a four-game absence at FAU, but was limited to just 3:32 of playing time after reaggravating a toe injury.

GLASS CLEANERS
• During Wichita State's six-game win streak, the battle of the boards was dominated by the Black and Yellow. Wichita State averaged 43.0 rebounds per game, while its opponents only grabbed 30.7 for an average of +12.3 per game. In total, Wichita State had 258 total rebounds compared to just 184  by its last six opponents (+74).
• Against UTSA and Memphis Wichita State had back-to-back games of 50+ rebounds. The Shockers had 54 against #14 Memphis and 50 against UTSA. The last time Wichita State posted consecutive games with 50+ rebounds was 2005 when the Shockers had 51 vs. Oklahoma Panhandle State on Nov. 18 and 53 vs. Texas Southern on Nov. 20.
• In Wichita State's win at South Florida on Feb. 9, the Shockers were a then season-best +20 (42-22) in rebound margin. The last time a Wichita State team outrebounded a Division I opponent by 20 or more was March 2, 2022 at Tulsa (+24). One game later Wichita State bested that mark by outrebounding UTSA by 21 (50-29). The 50 rebounds were a then season high until besting it in the very next game against Memphis with 54.
• The last time a Wichita State team had back-to-back games of a rebounding margin of +20 was Nov. 10, 2017 vs. UMKC (+28) and Nov. 13, 2017 vs. College of Charleston (+20).
• The 22 total rebounds are also the fewest Wichita State has allowed since that 2022 game at Tulsa when the Golden Hurricane finished with only 19 total rebounds.

THREE FOR THE ROAD
• Wichita State has reeled off three consecutive road wins in conference play at Charlotte (Feb. 4), South Florida (Feb. 9) and Florida Atlantic (Feb. 20). Its the first time under Paul Mills Wichita State has won three straight conference road games. The last time Wichita State won three straight conference games on the road was in 2023 on Feb. 5, Feb. 16 and Feb. 26 at Tulsa, Temple and Tulane. In that 2023 season Wichita State rattled off five in a row on the road.

IT STARTS WITH DEFENSE
• The Shockers allowed 88+ points in each of the first three conference games. The last time Wichita State allowed three straight conference opponents to score 88+ was in 1978-79.
• During Wichita State's 1-7 start to begin conference play they were allowing 75.9 points per game and opponents were shooting 47.3 percent from the field and 42.1 percent from beyond the arc. However, the defense looks to have turned a corner. Over the last seven games Wichita State is giving up just 69.4 points on 42.2 percent shooting and 28.9 percent from three-point range. The Shockers are also outrebounding their opponents by an average of 12.0 per game.
• In Wichita State's 11 losses, the Shockers are allowing opponents to shoot 49.2 percent from the field and 44.8 percent from three-point range. In Wichita State's 17 wins opponents are shooting only 39.7 percent from the field and 28.0 percent from beyond the arc.

ON THIS DATE: MAR. 3
• 1969 – Greg Carney scored 31 of his game-high 39 points after halftime and the Shockers rallied from a 14-point first-half deficit to upset No. 19 Tulsa in overtime, 95-87. Greg Rataj poured in 22 points after a scoreless first half.
• 2017 - Wichita State took care of buisness in the MVC quarterfinals vs. Bradley on the way to a conference tournament title in the Shockers' final year in the Valley.Darral Willis Jr. scored a team-high 17 points in just 14 minutes off the bench. The Shockers shot less than 40% and still scored 82 points.
• 2021 - Wichita State moved one step closer to clinching the 2021 American Athletic Conference regular season title with a 78-70 win over Tulane. Trey Wade poured in a game-high 23 points and Dexter Dennis had a 20-point, 13-rebound double-double.

UAB LEFTOVERS
• Wichita State dropped to 5-2 all-time vs. UAB.
• Wichita State is 15-16 all-time on Feb. 27.
• Wichita State is 3-9 in the Paul Mills era when alloing 80+ points.
• The Shockers won the rebound battle for the seventh straight game, and are outrebounding its last seven opponents, 300-216 (+84).
• Wichita State is 13-5 this season when outrebounding the opponent.
• Sixty-nine of Wichita State's 72 points came from its five starters. The Shockers were outscored 42-3 in bench scoring.
• Wichita State had won four straight games when losing the turnover battle, but that streak was ended vs. UAB. The Shockers were -8 in the turnover battle.
• Xavier Bell registered his 22nd game in double figures behind 17 points. He has scored 10 or more in each of the last six games.
• Corey Washington recorded his eighth double-double of the season behind a season-high 24 points, 11 rebounds, 3 blocks and 2 steals. Washington's 23 games in double figures this season lead the team. His 3 blocked shots were a season high.
• Quincy Ballard recorded his team-leading ninth double-double behind 10 points and 14 rebounds. For just the sixth time this season he was held without a blocked shot.
• Bijan Cortes dished out 6 assists. He has 26 assists over his last four games. He also tallied his fourth game in double figures and third in the last four games with 10 points.
• Harlond Beverly tied a season low with just 2 points after scoring 10 or more in each of the last four.

OLD TIMERS
• With COVID still impacting eligibility, several schools around the country have multiple student-athletes on their rosters playing in their fifth, sixth and even seventh seasons. Wichita State is tied for second in the country with seven student-athletes in their fifth year or higher of collegiate basketball.

A SHOCKER WIN WOULD...                                                                     
... Make them 18-11 this season.
... Make them 8-8 in conference play.
... Move them to 27-14 all time vs. North Texas.
... Snap a 3-game losing streak vs. the Mean Green.
... Make Paul Mills 33-30 as Wichita State head coach.
... Give Mills 139 career coaching victories.
... Run their record to 1,690-1,275 all time.

A SHOCKER LOSS WOULD...                                                                     
... Make them 17-12 this season.
... Be their second straight loss.
... Drop them to 7-9 in conference play.
... Drop them to 26-15 all time vs. North Texas.
... Be their 4th straight loss to the Mean Green.
... Make Paul Mills 32-31 as Wichita State head coach.
... Lower Mills' career record to 138-115.
... Drop their record to 1,689-1,276 all time.

GAME 30: at RICE                                                                  
• Wichita State is 3-1 all-time vs. Rice, having won each of the last three meetings with the Owls.
• This is the only regular season meeting between the two schools. Since Rice joined the American last season, this will be just the second regular season meeting.
• The Owls are 4-11 in conference play and fighting to get out of the play-in game for the conference tournament.
• Rice is led by first-year head coach Rob Lanier who comes to Rice from SMU.