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BREAKING: Rice Baseball to host 2023 Conference USA Tournament

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BREAKING: Rice baseball will host the 2023 Conference USA Baseball Tournament as the tournament shifts from Biloxi to member campuses starting in 2021.

Scheduling is going to look different across the landscape of college sports in the wake of the COVID-19 financial crunch. Conference USA will not be immune from those changes, some of which have already been put into action. Cutting down travel expenses wherever possible has been at the forefront of conversations.

One of the initial changes impacts the Conference USA Baseball tournament, which has been hosted at MGM Park in Biloxi, MS from 2017 to 2019. The tournament was scheduled to be played their again in 2020 before COVID-19 forced the cancelation of the season. Instead of the neutral site, the tournament is moving to member campuses.

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Rather than returning to Mississippi in 2021, the tournament will move to the newly renovated J.C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park. The home of the Louisiana State Bulldogs, Patterson Park was severely damaged in a tornado that passed through Ruston, LA in April of 2019. Southern Miss will host in 2022.

The Roost has confirmed Rice baseball will host in 2023. The Owls lasted hosted the conference tournament in 2013. Christian Stringer was named tournament MVP and the Owls punched their tickets to the postseason as tournament champions. Changing backdrops have been a good thing for Rice since then. Rice won the tournament when it shifted to Hattiesburg, MS in 2014 and again when it moved to Biloxi in 2017.

This is the first notable shift in scheduling that has come out in the wake of the pandemic. Further considerations including changes to Olympic sports and basketball scheduling could also be on the table. We will continue to provide updates on those as they come.

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Conference USA: Scheduling changes coming soon

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Conference USA athletics scheduling changes are on their way with modifications to the upcoming fall sports calendar expected soon.

The extended offseason has been a busy one for Conference USA and its member institutions and conversations among league officials and athletic directors about the structure of future schedules have been at the forefront.

“I don’t think there’s any question that our geographic stretch is a challenge for us,” Rice Athletic Director Joe Karlgaard said. “Pre-pandemic it was something that we made work. I think post-pandemic it’s something that we are really looking closely at.”

Ideas have been tossed around from sources inside and outside of Conference USA. Basketball is expected to end bonus play and could consider moving to a divisional structure to reduce travel. Olympics sports, in particular, are taking a hard look at more regionalized scheduling.

Administrators are also keeping an eye on what’s happening across the nation. The MAC cut postseason tournaments in several sports. Those changes reflect the historical Ivy League model, which traditionally awarded regular-season champions with any relevant postseason bids.

What will those changes look like? Karlgaard said the scope was far-reaching. “All of that is on the table for us to evaluate going forward.”

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This is not smoke and mirrors. Karlgaard has already been in discussion with Athletic Directors at schools in close geographic proximity. “They’re all interested [in regionalized scheduling],” he said. “What form and shape that takes, I think, is going to take longer for us to hash out.”

Long term scheduling adjustments will take time to play out, but changes to the upcoming seasons are imminent. Karlgaard indicated that he expects Conference USA to address fall scheduling as soon as this week, particularly with athletes now allowed to return to campus at several member schools. Rice had not yet set a timetable for the return of their own student-athletes.

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Rice Tennis: Trial by fire sets stage for Owls in 2020

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The trial-by-fire approach was painful for two Rice tennis sophomores, but the light at the end of the tunnel paints a reason to retain optimism.

Rice tennis found themselves in uncharted water when they trotted out Campbell Salmon and Karol Paluch as their top two players last fall. Head coach Efe Ustendag was excited about the potential each of those sophomores possessed, but seeing it tested so early as the frontrunners of an injury-plagued roster was decidedly not according to plan.

“We were out of bodies,” Ustendag admitted when asked about his decision to turn to the emerging duo. Reigning C-USA Player of the Year Sumit Sarkar was far from being 100 percent. Several other players were knocked up here and there. The sum total of the various injuries was a roster stretch thin early in the year.

Salmon and Paluch were asked to lead the way. They struggled early. They were noticeably affected by the jump in the level of competition they faced on a weekly basis. The Owls had planned to hit the duo sixth and seventh in the order, not first and second. Bruised but not beaten, the sophomores learned from the experience.

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Ustendag knew he was playing the long game. “I think this is really going to set them up well for the rest of their careers,” he said, seeing the good in a challenging situation.

Those two won’t be left alone to lead the way. Rice loses just one player, senior Eric Rutledge, from their starting rotation next season. They also add incoming freshman Trinity Grear and should have a more experienced version of returning sophomore Wes Barnett.

Next year’s upperclassmen-laden roster will have seen a thing or two in their college playing days. The adversity wasn’t comfortable in the moment, but the far-reaching impact could be very positive.

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Rice Tennis: Tough injury luck leaves Owls wishing for 2019 mulligan

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Injuries derailed the 2019-2020 Rice tennis season before it ever picked up much momentum. The Owls must pick up the pieces and look toward the future.

The 2019-2020 Rice tennis season needed a reboot by the time mid-March arrived. That reset that hit the Owls’ tennis program left no room for course corrections, instead causing the premature end of what had been a frustrating campaign

Reigning C-USA Men’s Player of the Year Sumit Sarkar had battled injuries throughout the fall. So too had fellow junior Jacob Eskeland. Outmanned, Rice battled against an unforgiving schedule that included a spring stretch with three Top 15 teams in the span of a month.

“I felt it would actually be a pretty good year for us,” recalled head coach Efe Ustundag. “We graduated nobody from the starting lineup, especially in singles, so everybody was coming back. We added a stellar freshman we thought was just going to make our entire unit stronger and Conference USA player of the year from the year before Sumit Sarkar [was] returning as a Top 25 collegiate player.”

It’s impossible to boil things down to a single “why” but the injury-riddled fall certainly played a significant role in what had become one of the worst starts of Ustendag’s tenure. Which is what made the March halt all the more disappointing.

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Rice had turned the corner on the injury front. For the first time in months, the team was able to match its opponents’ top players against its own.

“The record wasn’t stellar,” said Ustendag. “However, the quality of play was getting there and more importantly, we were getting healthy.”

Rice would never get that chance. There was no conference tournament this year and no NCAA Tournament either. The record books have been inked for this 4-8 season, one which was one win away from flipping the script. Sometimes you just have to chalk it up to a bad year and move on.

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Rice Tennis and the Zoom call heard ’round the world

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Rice tennis is adapting to their new normal. Their biggest challenge: how to get an entire international team together for a meeting at the same time.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted college athletics around the world. What should have been the spring season for Rice tennis was tabled just like everything else. Many players returned home, just like members of a slew of other athletic teams.

For many members of Rice tennis, though, home is a bit further than the average Rice athlete. The Owls have two Texans on their 10-man roster, one of which has now graduated and moved on. Of the other eight members (nine counting 2020 signee Trinity Grear), four of them make their homes in the United States. The remainder of the roster consists of international players.

Mohamed Abdel-Aziz is from the United Kingdom. Jacob Eskeland is from Norway. Karol Paluch is from Poland. Salmon Campbell is from Australia. A diverse roster isn’t unusual for the collegiate tennis, but it doesn’t have its challenges when it comes to working remotely.

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Coach Efe Ustundag has been forced to thread the needle when he wants to schedule time to chat with his entire team. 4:00 p.m. central time has become the window of choice. The team meetings then stretch from 2:00 p.m. local time in San Diego, to 11:00 p.m. local time in Norway and Poland to 7:00 a.m. local time in Melbourne, Australia.

It’s unconventional, especially compared to the hundreds of college sports teams who aren’t meeting simultaneously in the middle of the night and at the crack of dawn. But for Rice tennis, it works.

“A couple of the chats were clearly designed to catch up and let the guys be loose,” Ustundag said. “They haven’t seen each other for a while.” Each is led by a team member or a coach. Topics of the calls have varied widely from tennis specifics to mindfulness and time management.

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