FRISCO, Texas – North Texas junior guard Javion Hamlet has been named the 2019-20 Conference USA Player of the Year, while Mean Green head coach Grant McCasland has earned this year’s Gene Bartow Coach of the Year honor.  These awards were announced today prior to the opening of the 2020 Air Force Reserve Conference USA Men's Basketball Championships presented by Baylor Scott & White Sports Performance Center at the Ford Center at The Star.  Voting on the awards was done by the C-USA head coaches and media members in each conference city. 

2020 Men's Basketball Coach and Player of the Year.(pdf)
 
Hamlet picked up the top individual honor after leading the Mean Green to their first regular season C-USA title and first outright conference crown since winning the 1989 Southland regular season championship.  He was named to the All-Conference USA first team and the C-USA Newcomer of the Year earlier this week.
 
In league play, he led C-USA in assists (95), assists per game (5.3 apg), assist/turnover ratio (2.7), free throw percentage (88.3%) and was fourth in scoring (17.9 ppg).  Hamlet's 147 total assists this season currently ranks sixth all-time in UNT history for a single season.  The Memphis, Tennessee, native has an assist rate of 34.8, meaning 34.8 percent of the field goals that occur when he's on the floor are assisted by him.  That figure leads C-USA and ranks 30th in the nation.  In the Mean Green’s program-record 14 conference wins this year, Hamlet shot nearly 75 percent from the field in the final five minutes of games and scored an average of seven points during the final five minutes of conference wins.
 
Hamlet is the first Mean Green men's basketball player to take home multiple postseason conference honors in the same season since Tony Mitchell was voted the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year and first team all-conference after the 2011-12 season.  He is the first North Texas player to be named conference player of the year since Deon Hunter in 1988-98 in the Southland Conference.
 
McCasland guided North Texas to the regular season crown with a 14-4 league record and a 20-11 overall mark.  The Mean Green clinched their first C-USA title on March 1, the program’s first outright conference crown since 1989.  North Texas will be the No. 1 seed in the C-USA Championship, the program's first top seed in a league tournament since 1989.
 
Defense has been a big part of the success that McCasland’s unit has enjoyed this season.  The Mean Green lead C-USA in scoring defense, allowing 63.3 points per game.  UNT also has the top rebounding defense in the conference and are third in rebounding margin.  Offensively, the Mean Green lead the league in field goal percentage (.483) and three-point field goal percentage (.379).
 
McCasland becomes the second coach in North Texas history to be named conference coach of the year, joining Jimmy Gales who won back-to-back Southland Coach of the Year honors in 1988-89.  He has led the Mean Green to 20 or more wins in each of his first three seasons in Denton.
 
The last nine C-USA Coach of the Year awards have come from nine different schools.
 
The Conference USA Coach of the Year award is named in honor of C-USA Hall of Famer Gene Bartow, the legendary former coach at UAB along with other schools, who passed away in January 2012.
 
2019-20 CONFERENCE USA PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Javion Hamlet, North Texas, R-Jr., G, 6-4, 191, Memphis, Tennessee
 
2019-20 CONFERENCE USA GENE BARTOW COACH OF THE YEAR
Grant McCasland, North Texas (61-41 at UNT, third season; 81-53 career, fourth season)
 
The 2020 Air Force Reserve C-USA Men’s Basketball Championship presented by Baylor Scott & White Sports Performance Center at The Star in Frisco tips off on Wednesday at 6 p.m. CT. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit ConferenceUSA.com.