BIRMINGHAM, Ala. \u2013\u00a0The UNT women’s basketball team takes on fourth-seeded Tulsa Thursday in the quarterfinal round of the American Conference Championship.<\/p>\n
The winner of Thursday’s matchup will advance to face top-seeded Rice in the semifinals on Friday evening. North Texas reached the semifinal round last season but is still looking for its first conference tournament finals appearance since 2002.<\/p>\n
Now at 18-13 overall, UNT is looking to avenge a 57-53 defeat to Tulsa back on Jan. 23. The Mean Green led for 33:46 of game time but were ultimately doomed by a 1-for-17 three-point shooting performance and a late surge from the Golden Hurricane. Megan Nestor<\/a> was a bright spot in the loss with 19 points and 27 rebounds, good for the fifth highest single-game rebound total across the NCAA this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n As the No. 5 seed, North Texas received a bye into the tournament’s second round where it cruised past ninth-seeded Florida Atlantic, 80-57. The performance marked UNT’s third win over FAU this season by at least 18 points and 16th time holding its opponent to 60 or less. It also gave Jason Burton<\/a> his 66th victory as head coach at North Texas, which ties Judy Nelson for third most in program history.<\/p>\n Four Mean Green players scored in double digits Wednesday, including a game-high 24 by Aysia Proctor<\/a>. She tied her career high with five three-pointers and shot 8-of-13 from the field en route to her sixth 20-point game of the year. Nestor also produced 16 points and a dozen boards to become the third UNT player to ever record 20 double doubles in a season.<\/p>\n Another key player to watch is Andi Schissler<\/a>, who is shooting 49.2% from behind the arc over her last 11 games while scoring 10+ points seven times in that span. Her and Proctor have both cracked the program’s top 10 list for three-pointers in a season with 54 and 56, respectively.<\/p>\n Thursday’s game at Legacy Arena is once again slated for a noon tip-off and can be streamed on ESPN+ with Sam Gore and Brooke Weisbrod on the call. Sam Kaman also returns to provide radio coverage through the Varsity Network App.<\/p>\n WHAT 2 WATCH 4 BIG MEG POSTING BIG NUMBERS AT THE CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT A WIN WOULD…
\n\u2022 North Texas continues its run at the American Conference Championship on Thursday against Tulsa.
\n\u2022 With an 11-7 record in conference play, UNT received the tournament’s No. 5 seed and a bye into the second round. It defeated No. 9 Florida Atlantic, 80-57, in that game to advance to the quarterfinals.
\n\u2022 The Mean Green have reached the quarterfinals of their conference tournament in nine of the last 10 years, including all three seasons under Jason Burton<\/a>. They appeared in the semifinals three times in that span but are still looking for the program’s first finals appearance since 2002.
\n\u2022 Megan Nestor<\/a> and Aysia Proctor<\/a> collected several American Conference postseason honors this week, highlighted by Nestor’s Defensive Player of the Year award and both players being selected to All-Conference teams.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022\u00a0Megan Nestor<\/a> is a difference maker down low, averaging 12.9 points and 14.4 rebounds per game this year.
\n\u2022 Her 20 double doubles on the season lead the American and rank top 10 in the country. She is the American’s only player averaging a double double.
\n\u2022 She leads the NCAA in total rebounds (447), offensive rebounds (169), rebounds per game (14.4) and offensive rebounds per game (5.5). Her 447 rebounds are the most in program and conference history.
\n\u2022 Nestor is the nation’s only player to have recorded 20 rebounds in six games this year and one of two with 15 rebounds in 13 games. Those are both the highest totals in American Conference history.
\n\u2022 With rebound outings of 31, 28 and 27, Nestor has accounted for three of the five highest rebounding games across the NCAA this season. She is the first player since at least 1982 to reach 27 rebounds three times in a single season.
\n\u2022 Those three performances also hold the top three spots for single-game rebounds in UNT and American Conference history.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 North Texas has compiled a 16-28 record in games played at the conference tournament.
\n\u2022 UNT has reached the quarterfinal round in nine of its past 10 appearances at the conference tournament, including all three seasons under Jason Burton<\/a>.
\n\u2022 As the No. 2 seed last season, UNT reached the semifinals but was upset by third-seeded South Florida, 58-48.
\n\u2022 North Texas has reached the conference finals just one time (2002, Sun Belt). Its lone NCAA Tournament appearance in 1986 came via a one-game playoff tiebreaker for the Southland Conference title.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Improve North Texas to 19-13 on the year and mark its first time ever winning 19+ games in three straight seasons.
\n\u2022 Advance UNT to the semifinal round for the second straight year.
\n\u2022 Make North Texas 8-3 in its past 11 games.
\n\u2022 Give Jason Burton<\/a> 67 career wins as head coach at North Texas and move him past Judy Nelson for third most in program history.
\n\u2022 Give UNT its third win over Tulsa in the past four meetings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BIRMINGHAM, Ala. \u2013\u00a0The UNT women’s basketball team takes on fourth-seeded Tulsa Thursday in the quarterfinal round of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-535091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}