Josh White has heard just about every short joke in the book since he arrived at North Texas this season. Fans in the stands have called him a midget and a dwarf, but when it comes to creativity, the fans at Texas and New Mexico State come out on top for the catcalls that came from the stands.

DRC/Gary Payne

Mean Green guard Josh White looks to pass the ball against Oklahoma State in a November win at the Super Pit in Denton. White has defied odds and proven many doubters wrong despite his small frame.

“They called me Gary Coleman,” said White, who is generously listed at 5-10. “I don’t remember too many of the names people have called me, but I remember that.”

With the way he has played thus far this season, coaches in the Sun Belt Conference are starting to call White something else – the best freshman in the league and maybe one of the best in the country.

White enters UNT’s game tonight against Sun Belt front-runner South Alabama (17-3, 9-0) averaging 14.5 points a game, the top average for a true freshman in the league.

White, who is shooting 47.7 percent from the field, ranked eighth among freshmen in scoring nationally at 16.6 points a game before a bought with the flu and a concussion he suffered in a loss to Florida Atlantic on Jan. 19 contributed to a three-game stretch in which he scored only 14 points.

White was one of several UNT players slowed by the flu and was just starting to get back to form when he was hit by an elbow during a scramble for a loose ball in the first half of the Mean Green’s loss to FAU. The blow opened a cut over White’s right eye that took six stitches to close.

White was on a roll before his recent string of mishaps that appeared to come to an end when he scored 16 points in a loss at Middle Tennessee on Sunday. UNT is hoping to see White at his best like he was earlier in the season when he scored 25 points and hit a key 3-pointer late in a victory over Oklahoma State in the Super Pit in just his second college game.

White’s signature outing of the season thus far came just five games later when he tallied a season-high 28 points in a loss to Texas.

“Josh is the best overall freshman we have had in seven years here,” UNT head coach Johnny Jones said. “He has a good feel for the game. He is not somewhere you can hide him at the point guard spot. The way he has handled being in that spot in a league that is as competitive as the Sun Belt speaks volumes for him.”

There were plenty of coaches who saw White’s talent and knew of his bloodlines when he was a three-time all-state selection for Baton Rouge, La., Christian Life Academy. White’s older brother Quannas White played at Oklahoma.

 “Kentucky, Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, Mississippi State, Arkansas, their coaches would come to watch me play, but none of them offered a scholarship,” White said. “They were concerned with my height. I definitely play with a chip on my shoulder because of it.”

That attitude has allowed White to succeed in a game dominated by bigger players at UNT (12-7, 3-5). White is hitting 48.5 percent of his 3-point attempts, but also scores by charging right down the lane into a tangle of hands and arms of players who are much taller but rarely swat his shots away.

“Once we saw Josh in practice we could see that he is good,” UNT senior guard Ben Bell said. “It’s surprising that someone that size can make as big an impact on the game as he does.”

White never lacked for confidence when he joined a UNT team that advanced to the NCAA Tournament last season and returned three senior starters.

“My brother prepared me to play at the college level,” White said. “We would work out every day.”

Jones compared White to a few of the short players who have gone on to play in the NBA, including Spud Webb and Muggsy Bogues, who stand 5-6 and 5-3, respectively.

“I am used to playing against bigger players,” White said. “It comes from practice, playing against those guys and getting shots off.”

White has shown that ability while making an impression on coaches and fans around the Sun Belt.

“I don’t get to see many of the freshmen around the country, but I would be hard pressed to find another guy who is scoring the way he is scoring and shooting the percentage that he is,” said Orlando Early, whose Louisiana-Monroe team fell to UNT on a night White scored 20 points. “I would be shocked to see a lot of other guys doing what he does.”

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com .