INDIANAPOLIS – To be, or not to be? For an underdog named Javion Hamlet and his group of North Texas teammates, that was an easy question.
Hamlet scored 24 points and Thomas Bell had 16, along with some game-changing defense in overtime, around the 13th seeded Mean Green Friday to a 78-69 victory at no. 4 Purdue in the NCAA Tournament.
It was the second teenage upset of the Big Ten on the opening day of the NCAA Tournament – this coming hours after no. 15 Everywhere Roberts knocked out the state of Ohio.
What a great prize for Hamlet and Bell, a pair of seniors who led the Mean Green (18-9) to a regular U.S. conference title last year but missed a chance at the tournament when the season was over by COVID -19 has been canceled.
They made sure things kept going this time.
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Bell opened overtime with a 3 and then converted two Purdue shots underneath to help the Mean Green turn the extra session into a laugh. North Texas scored the first 11 points.
Hamlet inflicted most of his damage during a couple of sublime 8-0 personal runs in the second half, each blocking the momentum of Purdue (17-10) in his tracks. The second was a spinning, spinning, dribbling display of mastery in paint. That gave North Texas a nine-point lead with 7:45 left.
North Texas’ Javion Hamlet reacts to fans during the first half of a first-round game against Purdue at the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium, Friday, March 19, 2021, in Indianapolis. (Associated Press)
The Boilermakers scratched back and tied it at 61 on Trevion Williams’ setback with 21 seconds left.
But overtime was no match, and when it ended, Hamlet threw the ball into the sparsely populated stands at Lucas Oil Stadium, raised his hands above his head and left to the dressing room.
It was the first tournament in the history of North Texas, the team once known as the Eagles, which in 2000 officially adopted ‘Mean Green’ as the nickname. The moniker first became a thing when a fired cheerleader got creative playing football in the late ’60s; it was then more brought into the kraal when Hayden Fry, the folksy who has greater fame in Iowa, came to the Denton campus a few years later.
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But there was no bigger name this evening than Hamlet.
He made all eight of his free kicks and also had 11 hits and five assists. His 8-foot with 2:24 left in OT made it a seven-point game and turned the end into a free-throw shooting game.
Whatever North Texas won.