Rice basketball couldn’t find their stroke from deep, dropping a road contest to Louisiana Tech in one-sided fashion.
Rice basketball knew they’d be in for a tough one when they hit the road for Ruston, Louisiana on Thursday night. Although Louisiana Tech had fallen to UAB the weekend prior and lost their status as the conference’s lone unbeaten team, the Bulldogs were still one of the best teams the Owls had on the schedule this season. It was going to be a challenge.
Halfway through the first half, Rice looked to be up to the task. The Owls led by as many as five points and never trailed in the first nine minutes of regulation. Then Rice, leading 20-18, missed nine of 10 shots and watched as a close game turned extremely perilous in the span of a few trips down the court.
Last Time Out: Rice Basketball slips at home, falls to Charlotte
The two-man tandem of Kenneth Lofton and Cobe Williams proved lethal in this game. Both mean reached double-digit scoring in the first half, helping Louisiana Tech stretch a small lead to a 15-point halftime advantage. Rice was able to claw away part of the deficit in the second half, relying heavily on Mylyjael Poteat in the post. His inside presence proved stabilizing for most of the second half before Louisiana Tech regained their shooting stroke.
After Rice cut the deficit to single digits, Louisiana Tech rattled off a 10-0 run, their second such double-digit streak of the evening. Rice did a lot of things well, but those two spurts proved too much for the team to overcome on an off shooting night on the road where the Owls made just 32.8 percent of their field goals compared to Louisiana Tech’s much better 48.5 percent from the floor.
Player Spotlight | Quincy Olivari
Olivari’s season started slow, in large part because of a wrist injury that hampered his shooting stroke. His contributions on offense were limited as he worked to get back to full strength. He’d had a few strong showings, highlighted by a 27-point outburst against Houston Baptist. His 18 points and 10 rebounds marked his most productive contest since then and his first career double-double.
Stat Corner | Off the mark
Rice basketball has come a long way from its live-by-the-three, die-by-the-three reality in recent seasons. The defense has improved and the team has found a reliable inside presence in Poteat whom they can turn to when the outside shots aren’t falling. They won’t shoot the lights out of the gym every night, but they’re going to have to at least find some level of success to win games like this.
Thursday was a bad night from three, marring what could have been a much closer contest. Rice made 4-of-26 three-point shots, an abysmal 15 percent. The Owls are 1-6 this season when making less than 33 percent of their triples. They’re 10-2 in all other games. Some of those included white-hot outside shooting performances, but many of them didn’t. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it can’t be 15 percent.
Final Box | LA Tech 80 – Rice 63
FINAL | LA Tech 80 – @RiceMBB 63 pic.twitter.com/bi5Sw9t8Hn
— The Roost (@AtTheRoost) January 28, 2022
Up Next | Full Schedule
Rice basketball completes its current two-game road trip on Saturday in Hattiesburg against Southern Miss. From there they’ll head home for a three-game homestand featuring games against UTSA (Thursday, Feb 3), UTEP (Saturday, Feb 5) and North Texas (Saturday, Feb 12).
