Midnight finally came for No. 9 Seed Rice Women’s Basketball, who saw their incredible run end in a loss to USF in the AAC Tournament Championship Game.
Sussy Ngulefac was the stabilizing force that did everything she could to keep the 2024-2025 Rice Women’s Basketball season alive. Following a quieter set of games earlier in the AAC Tournament, Ngulefac scored eight of the Owls’ first 10 points in the Championship Game and was the only counterpunch Rice had early for an explosive South Florida attack.
South Florida knocked down a trio of threes in the first quarter — Rice wouldn’t hit a single three until the final minutes — to go in front by six after one quarter. They’d grow that lead to 11 at halftime and as many as 15 points midway through the third frame.
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It was Malia Fisher who helped engineer the Owls’ comeback bid. Last season’s Championship Game MVP, Fisher scored 17 points and grabbed six boards, propelling Rice back into the game and cutting the deficit to five points midway through the fourth quarter. The Owls wouldn’t get closer than that, though.
Rice Women’s Basketball season comes to an end one game short of a second consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament at 17-17 overall and 7-11 in conference play
Final Box | USF 69, Rice 62
FINAL | USF 69, @RiceWBB 62
— The Roost (@AtTheRoost) March 13, 2025
Owls' season comes to an end one game short of a tournament championship. pic.twitter.com/V75P1TtFDm
Highlights
What They’re Saying | Press Conference
Key takeaway | Evaluating an unexpected season
Properly remembering the 2024-2025 Rice women’s basketball season is going to come with its challenges. On one hand, the team drastically underperformed their preseason expectations from November through February.
Head coach Lindsay Edmonds and her team opened the year talking about NET rankings and improving upon their tournament seeding, only to tumble down the standings and finish as a No. 9 Seed in the conference tournament. Yes, a step above the No. 10 Seed line the Owls had when they cut down the nets a year ago, but a far cry from NCAA caliber… or was it?
If the Owls get a better start or avoid a season-worst shooting performance from three, that same underperforming team would be going back to the Big Dance. That’s quite a turnaround from where things began.
“I think it’s no secret we didn’t have the overall season that we wanted to have from the expectations of where we finished last season to how we wanted to start the season, how we wanted to start the conference play. But I think, again, it just matters of how much this team bought into we are here [at the AAC Tournament and] now it’s 0-0 and best team will win,” Edmonds said. “and we came out trying to do whatever it took to keep playing and to continue playing.
“It just goes to the grittiness and the toughness of our team. We let the losses fall away from January and February. We weren’t worried about those. We were just worried about the present. We were where our feet were and we were trying to be the best Rice women’s basketball team that we could be.”
That version of the Owls looked a lot like the preseason No. 2 team, which many expected to take the court this season. Edmonds’s job now is to determine why that team waited until crunch time to show up and how she can expedite that process without five departing seniors.
The reality is, this year was messy, but nearly came together in a storybook run. There is always plenty of good and bad in a season like this. Figuring out how to sort one from the other and move on is the difference between fun weeks in Fort Worth and a team set up for success in the long run. The Owls and Edmonds certainly hope to be back here a year from now as an established squad they believe they’re capable of growing into, not another Cinderella.
