Super Bowl Update

Troy head basketball coach Don Maestri wasn't confident in starting point guard Will Weathers playing Saturday at 3 p.m. against North Texas in Denton. Weathers twisted his ankle late in the loss at Denver Thursday, aggravating an injury earlier this season that caused him to miss a game.

Weathers is Troy's leading scorer and leads the Sun Belt in assists.

"I don't know if he'll be able to play," Maestri said. "He rolled it going after a ball. He's a pretty tough kid and he can play with a lot of pain and has a high pain tolerance. We've seen him do this before (injure his ankle) and at times, he's had to sit out for a couple of days."

If Weathers can't go, Emil Jones would handle point guard duties. Backup Nic Combs left the team a week ago.

"Emil is probably our most least-turnover prone ball handler," Maestri said. "He's actually a pretty good ball handler and can run the offense."

If Weathers can go, there will be one change to the starting lineup. R.J. Scott (13 points on 5-of-8 shooting) will start in place of Alan Jones (0-of-8).

If Weathers can't go, the lineup would be Emil Jones-RJ Scott-Alan Jones-Justin Wright-Tim Owens. Alan Jones will get plenty of minutes regardless and have chances to get back in the groove from 3-point land.

North Texas is coming off a home loss to UALR on Thursday. The Mean Green lost most of last year's team and are relying on some talented freshmen. One is point guard Chris Jones, who is scoring around 15 ppg, but has more turnovers than assists. Another is 6-foot-8, 230-pound forward Tony Mitchell, who is a legit NBA Draft prospect and could go pro after just one year.

"I hope he does," Maestri said. "He's a tremendous player. He can play any position on the floor and he's a great shooter."

"It depends on what night you catch North Texas. They've had a few chemistry problems. One night they're really on, and other nights, like when they got upset by Little Rock last night, they're off. Denver's going to be good every night, but North Texas is up and down."

(my guess is that Weathers plays, but we'll see how effective he is.)

***Saturday morning edit: From the Denton Record-Chronicle, North Texas will be without injured forward Kedrick Hogans, one of the team's veteran leaders. He suffered a knee injury against UALR.