Mitchell Drafted 37th

{fshare id=4006}

DENTON, Texas – With the 37th pick of Thursday’s 2013 NBA Draft the Detroit Pistons selected Tony Mitchell, which made the former North Texas standout the highest draft pick in Mean Green basketball history.

Mitchell is the first NT player taken in the NBA Draft since John Horrocks in the fourth round in 1984. In all, 16 Mean Green players have been drafted in the history of the program. The previous high NT pick was Kenneth Lyons, who was taken with the 23rd pick of the second round of the 1983 draft by the Philadelphia 76ers.

A consensus national top-25 recruit coming out of high school, Mitchell earned numerous All-Sun Belt honors while rewriting the Mean Green shot blocking records with 87 in 2012-13 and 157 for his career. Mitchell posted multi-block games in 28 of 32 games last season, and ranked third in the NCAA in career blocks per game among all active players with at least 50 games played.

Mitchell finished his career ranked 10th in the nation among active players with a career rebounding average of 9.2 per game, and scored 13.7 points on 49.0 percent shooting for his career.

After a standout freshman campaign in which he led the Sun Belt in scoring (15.9 PPG), rebounding (11.8 RPG), 3-point percentage (47.1) and blocks (3.1 BPG), Mitchell was named the Sun Belt Freshman of the Year, as well as First-Team All-Sun Belt and All-Sun Belt Tournament team. Those accolades led to numerous preseason All-America nods from across the country.

Mitchell was the leading rebounder and shot blocker for the U19 USA Basketball team at the 2011 FIBA World Championships prior to playing for the Mean Green. He was also a standout at the LeBron James and Amar’e Stoudemire skills academies in the summer of 2012.