A quick look at Purdue's first NCAA Tournament opponent, North Texas, who earned an automatic-qualifier bid by beating top-seeded Western Kentucky for the Conference-USA Tournament championship.

The Mean Green enters the NCAA Tournament at 17-9 after going 9-5 during the C-USA season, finishing third in its West division, behind Louisiana Tech and UAB.

After closing the regular season on a three-game losing streak, North Texas tore through four games in four days and beat three teams with better records — Old Dominion, Louisiana Tech and WKU — to win the conference tournament and become Conference-USA's lone March Madness rep.

C-USA played a back-to-back scheduling format like some other smaller conferences, and interestingly, all of North Texas' games with UAB, ODU and WKU were lost due to postponements.

In short, North Texas was 13-9 in the regular season despite six of its games against its conference's best teams being lost. You can look at that a few different ways, but the reality is that the Mean Green have proven themselves more in the postseason than they did in the regular season.

In non-conference play, North Texas traveled to high-majors Arkansas, Mississippi State and West Virginia and lost all three. A trip to Loyola (Chicago) resulted in an eight-point setback. A game vs. LSU was called off.

North Texas is ranked 71st per KenPom.