Rice Women’s Basketball bounced back with a dominant defensive performance, holding FAU to a program conference-best 18.2 percent shooting from the floor.
It seemed as if neither side could find the hoop in the opening minutes of FAU’s visit to play Rice women’s basketball on Tuesday night. FAU opened 2-for-11 from the floor. Rice was worse, hitting just one of its first 11 shots. While FAU continued to see intermittent success at best from the floor, Rice used that lull as a launching point.
“We needed that one. We needed that in one in that fashion,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said. “We challenged them in the first media [timeout] and they responded and after that, we just kind of took off.”
Trailing 8-2 at that point, Rice would hit seven consecutive shots, turning a six point deficit into a six point advantage in the span of five minutes of court time spanning the end of the first quarter and the start of the second. Rice would go into break up by 14, what felt like a commanding advantage considering FAU’s paltry 16 total points across 20 minutes of action.
More: Rice Football: 2025 Recruiting Class Analysis — Defense
The third quarter brought more of the same, Rice defensive dominance and a steady trickle of made shots from the home team. If there was any doubt remaining in the outcome of this contest it was put to rest with a backbreaking three pointer by Dominique Ennis that put Rice in front by 19, a 44-21 margin, with 4:25 remaining in the third quarter.
That massive advantage made the fourth quarter a breeze. The Owls held serve in the final 10 minutes, limiting FAU to a meager 39 total points to secure a much-needed victory. The win brings Rice to 13-13 overall and 6-8 in AAC play.
Final Box | Rice 72, FAU 39
FINAL | @RiceWBB 72, FAU 39 pic.twitter.com/HCqphSI78w
— The Roost (@AtTheRoost) February 19, 2025
Key takeaway | Defensive intensity
The offense has been an odyssey for Rice women’s basketball all season long. With the regular season being measured in days rather than months, it’s hard to see those issues correcting themselves to a significant degree. So while the offense has it’s spurts and starts, the burden has fallen to the defense to set the tone.
“I couldn’t ask for anything better,” Edmonds said of the Owls’ dominant defensive showing. “That’s what we have the capabilities of doing and now that we’ve shown it we’ve got to bring it a little bit more. That’s exactly how I know that we can defend. That’s how I expect us to defend.”
To put into context just how atypical the Owls’ defensive dominance was in this game one has to dive nearly exhaust the record books. Only once in the past 20 seasons — that’s as far back game-by-game shooting data data was available at this time — has Rice held and opponent below 20 percent shooting from the field.
Rice held UTEP to 18.9 percent from the field on Feb. 1, 2007. On Tuesday night they limited FAU to 18.2 percent from the floor. That’s a mark that goes back hundreds of games, a slew of coaching staffs and beyond the renovations made to Tudor Fieldhouse in 2008. It’s the best defensive field goal percentage Rice has allowed in program history against a conference opponent.”
“I kept saying we were going to right the ship and I feel this is the first part of that, right? We want to make sure that we are going into March being as confident as we can,” Edmonds said. “We’ve got four games that are coming up that are going to be big for us and we’ve got to take them one at a time, but we took care of the first one and that was tonight.”
Up Next: vs UTSA (Sat, 2/22)
