Edwards leads North Texas against Rice

North Texas Mean Green (16-13, 9-8 AAC) at Rice Owls (11-19, 5-12 AAC)

Houston; Saturday, 8 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: North Texas faces Rice after Jason Edwards scored 32 points in North Texas' 80-76 loss to the Florida Atlantic Owls.

The Owls are 6-9 in home games. Rice has a 7-13 record in games decided by 10 or more points.

The Mean Green have gone 9-8 against AAC opponents. North Texas scores 68.6 points and has outscored opponents by 5.9 points per game.

Rice makes 44.3% of its shots from the field this season, which is 3.5 percentage points higher than North Texas has allowed to its opponents (40.8%). North Texas averages 8.1 made 3-pointers per game this season, 0.6 fewer makes per game than Rice allows.

The matchup Saturday is the first meeting this season for the two teams in conference play.

TOP PERFORMERS: Travis Evee is shooting 41.7% and averaging 16.3 points for the Owls. Mekhi Mason is averaging 13.9 points over the last 10 games.

Edwards is scoring 19.1 points per game and averaging 2.3 rebounds for the Mean Green. John Buggs III is averaging 2.3 made 3-pointers over the last 10 games.

LAST 10 GAMES: Owls: 4-6, averaging 70.7 points, 33.4 rebounds, 12.7 assists, 4.5 steals and 3.9 blocks per game while shooting 45.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 74.8 points per game.

Mean Green: 4-6, averaging 71.0 points, 31.7 rebounds, 10.8 assists, 7.2 steals and 3.0 blocks per game while shooting 44.0% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 69.4 points.

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.