When North Texas men’s basketball coach Grant McCasland was booking flights and hotels for his family to attend the NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis, he set the return date for Monday. He had no plans for his family to attend just one game in the win-or-go-home tournament.
“We just believed we were doing it,” McCasland said. “You don’t approach it any other way.”
The Mean Green “did it” to say the least. They’re one of the Cinderellas of this year’s March Madness, stunning 4-seed Purdue in overtime, 78-69, on Friday night. It marked the first NCAA Tournament victory for the North Texas program.
Now the attention has shifted to Sunday’s 7:40 p.m. matchup with 5-seed Villanova. The winner earns a trip to the Sweet 16.
“The job is not finished,” UNT senior point guard Javion Hamlet said. “We didn’t come here to win one game.”
The Mean Green are a confident group, believing they can play with anyone in the country. This is a team that won four games in four days to secure the Conference USA tournament title and then defeated a Purdue team that was essentially playing in its backyard.
“There’s a resolve that we didn’t just come to play. We came to win,” McCasland said. “There’s a lot of people shocked, but you get in that locker room, we celebrated, but I was probably the one acting the craziest. These guys are like, ‘Coach, let’s get back to the hotel to get ready to play another one.’
“We know we’re going to have to play our absolute best game to beat Villanova, no question about that. I know our guys are excited to prepare. There is not any sense of accomplishment associated with what we’ve done.”
The sense of accomplishment will come whenever the season ends. For now, they’re still in the mix and dreaming of reaching the Sweet 16.
Odds aren’t in the Mean Green’s favor, though. The last time a 13-seed upset a 5-seed to reach the Sweet 16 was in 2006 when Bradley defeated Pittsburgh. Bradley was coming off a victory over Kansas in the first round and it had a top-10 pick in that year’s draft named Patrick O’Bryant.
Bradley is one of just three 13-seeds to reach the Sweet 16 by knocking off a 4-seed and then a 5-seed since the tournament expanded in 1985. The last 13-seed to reach the Sweet 16 was La Salle in 2013, but it defeated 12-seed Mississippi in the Round of 32.
For North Texas, it believes it has the players and talent to do so. This is a team with a veteran backcourt led by Hamlet and junior guard Madrez McBride. Hamlet scored a team-high 24 points against Purdue, while McBride finished with 16 points, including making 4 of 6 from deep.
The other players to finish in double figures for the Mean Green were senior forward Thomas Bell (16 points) and senior guard James Reese (13 points).
“You win with experience, but there can’t be a mentality that you’re just going to win because you feel like you are,” McCasland said. “That’s what I love about this team. We practice really hard. We just get after it. The guys on our roster work.”
McCasland added that his senior group has learned to “want to win more than they want to play good.”
That mindset will be important against a Villanova program that has won two national championships in the last six seasons. This year’s Wildcats are tied for the NCAA lead in committing the fewest turnovers (8.9) per game.
McCasland said it wasn’t difficult for him or the team to “reset” from the thrill of Friday’s victory to focus on Sunday’s game.
“We came down to breakfast this morning and how you reset is you watch Villanova for five minutes,” he said. “You realize you’re playing one of the most disciplined, cultured programs in college basketball.”
