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Rice Baseball 2024: Names to Know — Pitching

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Entering Year 3 under head coach Jose Cruz Jr the Rice baseball roster is starting to take shape. Here are a few names to know on the mound.

Rice baseball has a frontline ace and lots of unproven potential on the mound entering the 2024 season. In their second season under pitching coach Parker Bangs, the entire pitching staff will look to take a step forward. Here are the key pieces the Owls will have to work with on the mound this season.

Moving On

Rice lost arguably its two most talented bullpen arms to the MLB Draft this past offseason as Matthew Linskey and Justin Long moved on to test the professional ranks. Also departing are veterans Garret Zaskoda and Krishna Raj.

Coming Back

The best news for the Rice baseball pitching staff should be the starting rotation. The Owls bring back staff ace Parker Smith, who dazzled on Friday nights last year and should do so again. Behind him, JD McCracken should be the frontrunner for Saturdays with Sunday less certain at this point. Tyler Hamilton is thought to be a strong contender for that spot right now.

More: Potential the word for Rice Baseball in Year 3 under Cruz

The bullpen is where things get tricky. Jack Ben-Shoshan is probably the most trustworthy known quantity there, but another year of development should be promising for players like Garrett Stratton and Ryland Urbancyzk.

Micah Davis should make his return at some point, recovering from an injury that forced him to miss last season. Mauricio Rodriguez, Reed Gallant and Tom Vincent will provide some veteran depth as some of the younger players come along throughout the season.

Added to the Mix

The back end of the bullpen likely offers the most opportunity for new faces to make a name for themselves in the early goings of the season. Given the lack of established horses, a newcomer who compiles a couple of solid outings could warrant a longer runway for evaluation. Davion Hickson is one such name to monitor.

Hickson joins Rice from Florida State, although he only pitched one inning for the Seminoles before transferring to South Main. He was a name singled out by veteran catcher Manny Garza before spring workouts began, along with freshman righty Jake Melvin.

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Potential is the Word for Rice Baseball in Year 3 under Jose Cruz Jr.

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After years of building, Rice baseball head coach Jose Cruz Jr and his team believes this is the year to take that next step forward.

It’s been a slow grind for Rice baseball and head coach Jose Cruz Jr. since he took the helm of the program before the 2022 season. When he arrived he was quick to moderate expectations. “I’m not going to promise the moon right now,” he said before entering debut season. That was two years ago. Since Cruz and his staff have worked tirelessly to revamp a roster that was in need of talent at several key spots

Cruz had done his best to balance high school signees with Transfer Portal additions, endeavoring to build a roster with the right mix of ability and understanding. Culture, often as nebulous of a word in sports as any other, has been a work in progress and he would be one of the first to admit it. Slowly but surely, those labors appear to be bearing their first fruits.

“I’ve been saying it the whole year. It’s taken me three falls to create the environment that I wanted to create. It’s fertile ground for development and for guys to keep pushing themselves and get better,” Cruz said. “It’s here, the time is now. Our team is pretty dynamic. Now we just have to show it on the field.”

Rice has retained Parker Smith, whom Cruz accurately referred to as a “bonafide ace”. They’ve added key transfers like Treyton Rank from Florida State and Kye McDonald from Wichita State. There’s been buzz all offseason about the velocity of the arms Rice will be able to bring out of the bullpen. Optimism abounds. Hope is in the air. This is a team with potential. Cruz believes they have the drive to go with it.

“The beauty of what we have right now with our team is there’s a lot of guys that have a lot of whys. They have a purpose. They have a mission of why they are here,” Cruz explained. “Some people are trying to get themselves into a position to get in the lineup. Some people are trying to go professional. Some people want to develop.”

More: Parker Smith’s journey to Rice Baseball ace

Organizing all of those whys into one collective mission has been the challenge for this program in recent years. It all comes back to culture, something veteran leaders have agreed is much improved. “Compared to teams in the past, we definitely have a better locker room culture and just culture overall,” Smith said. “It’s a game failure. Baseball is a game of failure. You’re bound to fail and you’re going to have to rely on your teammates to back you up and pick you up.”

The odds suggest Smith is right. Rice baseball will get knocked down more than a few times this year. They’ll suffer some painful losses and things won’t always go according to plan. How they deal with those hardships will determine how far they’ll eventually be able to go.

That “potential” piece isn’t new. Rice baseball has had potential for eons. How else could they have assembled a National Championship team in the modern era? That team took ahold of its potential and translated into production. That’s the task for Cruz and for his players. National championship ceiling or not, this is a team that, on paper, looks better than it ever has under his direction. That potential needs to translate into wins.

The Owls’ first crack comes in a few days against Notre Dame. Opening Day at Reckling Park against a national, premier brand. You can’t have much more of a bigger potential opportunity than that.

** Photo Credit: Maria Lysaker **
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Rice Women’s Basketball leans on bench to blow past Tulsa

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Rice Women’s Basketball jumped out to an early lead against Tulsa, controlling the game in a convincing home victory.

Rice women’s basketball never led the first time they took the court against Tulsa this season. The Owls trailed for most of that game before mounting a late comeback in the final minutes to tie, but never surpass, the Golden Hurricane. This time around, the Owls were ready, jumping out to a 7-0 lead in a game they would control for the duration.

Tulsa didn’t go quietly into the night, taking a brief one-point lead at the end of the first quarter. It was at that point, though, Rice went to its bench and made good use of its deep roster. Jazzy Owens-Barnett delivered 10 straight points in the second quarter before giving way to Hailey Adams, who scored seven of the Owls’ next 10.

Emily Klaczek had a run of her own in the third quarter. It was as if the Owls were handing off a baton throughout the game, with each player doing their part and passing the task to another. Malia Fisher, Dominque Ennis and Destiny Jackson with a combined 13 points, but Rice held the line and kept the lead.

Tulsa whittled their deficit down to five at the start of the fourth quarter but would not get closer than that. Seemingly every Rice player made at least one basket in the final frame — seven different Owls scored in the fourth quarter — as Rice slammed the door with a 7-0 run punctuated with a run-away layup from Owens-Barnett to go ahead by 15.

“It’s super fun to be able to just know the person you’re throwing to is nine times out of ten going to hit that shot,” Owens-Barnett joked afterward. “It’s really fun,” Adams said. “There’s so many more reads you can make. There’s so many more things that can happen.”

The win propels Rice past Tulsa in the conference standings and ensures a split in the regular season series with the Golden Hurricanes. At 8-4, Rice now moves to third in the AAC standings.

Final Box | Rice 78 – Tulsa 66

What They’re Saying

“Winning is fun. I’m really proud of this team. I’m really proud of our effort, really proud of how locked in I thought we were from tip to finish. That’s a great basketball team. They’re going to win a lot of games, but I think we just showed today how talented we are, how deep we are, and how impressive we are. Our bench was tremendous for us, 41 points off the bench to their nine. I’ve been talking about it all year long, how deep this team is, and you can sub and there’s no drop off. I think today just showcases that even more. But winning is fun. That was a lot of fun.” – Head coach Lindsay Edmonds

Key takeaway | Making it hard for them

The record might not be pristine, but the focus of this team is to be at their best in March when every game matters that much more. Injuries and bad bounces have handed Rice women’s basketball their fair share of lumps thus far, but time and time again, they’ve responded with nights like tonight.

The last time these two teams met on the court, Delanie Crawford and Temira Poindexter combined for 48 points. This go around that dynamic scoring duo reached 44 points, but it required 35 shots to get there.

“They’re both tremendous players. They both get up a lot of shots. You have to be honed in to them at all times. You’re never going to be able to keep either of them scoreless because they’re that good,” Edmonds said. “We just wanted to make everything hard for them.”

Up Next: vs ECU (Wednesday, Feb. 14)

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Rice Basketball falters late, falling to USF at home

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The roller coaster ride of this Rice Basketball continued on Saturday as the Owls climbed to a big lead before falling to South Florida at home.

Roller coasters and the current Rice basketball season have more in common than one might care to admit. Fresh off a blowout loss against SMU, Rice went found itself leading top-seeded South Florida by 13 at halftime. Travis Evee was in the zone. Max Fiedler was controlling the paint. Keanu Dawes delivered a myriad of clutch moments, coming off the bench for the first time this season.

But, as head coach Scott Pera would be the first to say, it’s a 40-minute game. And that roller coaster? For every up, it has a down. The drop coincided with the second half whistle. USF hit five of their first six threes after the break, erasing the Rice advantage and taking their first lead just minutes in the second frame.

USF’s 23-5 second half run quickly erased the Rice lead and turned the game into a dogfight down the stretch. Rice would tie it up at 65-65 with 2:36 remaining in the second half. USF hit one more three to go back in front. Rice was out of baskets. Despite leading for the entirety of the first half and never trailing by more than two possession, Rice fell, again.

“We need to find consistency. Our players have been a roller coaster in their individual performances and our team has been a rollercoaster because of it,” head coach Scott Pera said. “We cannot find a consistent performance across the board from all our guys. That’s been the story.”

Final Box | USF 69 – Rice 65

Key takeaway | Good, but not good enough

A visibly frustrated Scott Pera sat down for his postgame press conference following his Rice basketball’s drubbing at the hands of SMU. He said all the right things and made promises to do everything he could to get his team prepared for their upcoming game against league-leading South Florida.

And while Pera took full responsibility for that defeat, he made it clear this team wasn’t going anywhere if its leaders, specifically Max Fiedler and Travis Evee, didn’t play better. “We’re not winning in this league if Max and Travis aren’t playing well,” he declared.

For the most part, the Owls’ stars led the way. Fiedler scored three of the Owls’ first four field goals from the floor. Evee followed immediately afterward, scoring seven straight points on his own to give Rice a 10-point lead over the AAC’s top team.

Fiedler finished with 13 points, 13 rebounds and five assists. Evee scored a team-high 20 points. Statistically, it was night and day better from the SMU outing just days ago. But unfortunately for the Owls, the result didn’t change. It was a closer loss, but a loss all the same.

“We knew we had to play better. It didn’t really take anyone to tell us that,” Evee said. “I still don’t think we played our best ball today. We have to find a way to keep playing better.”

Up Next: at Tulsa (Saturday, Feb. 17)

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Bobby Kennedy named Rice Football WR Coach

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Rice football has a new position coach. The Owls have announced the addition of wide receivers coach Bobby Kennedy.

Bobby Kennedy has been named the wide receivers coach for Rice football by head coach Mike Bloomgren. He takes over the spot left by Mike Kershaw, who departed this offseason to be the head coach at Mississippi College after five seasons leading the room. Kennedy boasts and extensive track record of success and profiles as a great addition to the Owls’ staff.

Rice football issued this release summarizing Kennedy’s accomplishments:

“Kennedy brings over 30 years of coaching experience to Rice, including seven seasons at Texas from 2004 to 2010 where his receivers played a key role in the Longhorn’s 2005 BCS title and a return to the national championship game in 2009.  In addition to his seven seasons in the Big XII, he has coached in the Pac-12 for a combined 11 seasons (Stanford 2018-22; 2010-11; Washington 2002-03 and Arizona 2001), as well as three seasons in the Big Ten at Iowa (2013-16), and six in the ACC at Wake Forest (1995-2000) after beginning his career in the Mountain West at Wyoming (1993-94).  “

Consistency has been a hallmark of head coach Mike Bloomgren’s staff, with most offseasons featuring minimal turnover. The lone exception came a year ago when Rice brought in five new position coaches en route to their best program finish under Bloomgren to date.

The objective for this offseason was to build off that success as much as possible. So far, the Owls seem to be doing just that, returning the bulk of their starters on both sides of the ball and only making one change among position coaches, inserting Kennedy into an already impressive staff.

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