NCAA Basketball: 10 best players from state of Tennessee of last decade
By Joey Loose
3. Javion Hamlet – North Texas
Hamlet only stayed at North Texas for two seasons, but the young stud accomplished quite a lot in those two years. A 6’4 guard from Memphis, he made his way to the Lone Star State to play for Grant McCasland and the Mean Green in 2019, playing a featured role across the next two seasons.
As a freshman, he averaged 14.6 points and 4.7 assists a game, leading the Mean Green to a C-USA regular season title, though the season was ended early by the pandemic. In his second and final season, those numbers were even more impressive, as Hamlet averaged 15.7 points and 4.5 assists per game. He led North Texas to the NCAA Tournament by winning the C-USA Tournament and scored 24 points and 12 rebounds in a first-round upset of 4-seed Purdue, the program’s first NCAA Tournament win.
Hamlet was C-USA Player of the Year as a freshman and Tournament MVP as a sophomore. He led the North Texas team to that historic upset in the Big Dance and was one of the conference’s best players from the time he arrived on campus. He actually led the conference in assists and free throw shooting during that sophomore year, even if he didn’t repeat as conference player of the year. He’s spent parts of the last year playing both internationally and in the G-League, but it’s not yet known where Hamlet’s next basketball stop will be.