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Rice Basketball: Loss to Southern Miss a gut punch to Owls

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For the first time this season, Southern Miss has won a Conference USA game thanks to an ineffective road showing by Rice Basketball.

Rice basketball began the season with a 50 point drubbing on the road at Arkansas. Then they responded with four straight wins, including a come-from-behind 22-point bounce back on the road against UC Santa Barbara. The strange start left opened the door to an array of questions, first and foremost, what is this team going to be? Almost three months later, we still don’t know.

Unfortunately, the Owls’ most recent outing answer more of those questions than they might have wanted. The 4-win Golden Eagles led the Owls for the vast majority of regulation, eventually ratcheting their advantage into the double digits, a familiar feeling for the Owls in recent weeks. After starting the season 8-4, Rice basketball sits at a gut-wrenching 9-10.

At the onset, this game felt a lot like Rice football’s road game against UTSA. In that contest, the Owls were perceived to be the team with the advantage and were playing a game they felt like they should win — in some ways needed to win. Instead, the downtrodden Owls let the struggling Roadrunners do more or less whatever they wanted, scratching yet another mark in a growing loss column. The basketball team can now relate.

Southern Miss had lost seven consecutive games to teams not named Tougaloo (an NAIA squad that scored 77 on the Golden Eagles just before Christmas). Rice lost 81-68. Nothing went right. Drew Peterson fouled out. Ako Adams had zero points, going 0-for-7 from the floor. Rice shot 25.7 percent from three.

What happens will go a long way toward determining the fate of this season. The football team used the pain of the UTSA loss to rally, ending the season on a high note. Rice basketball hopes to rise from the depths in much the same way.

Final Stats

Player of the game – Trey Murphy

Trey Murphy seems to have found his shooting stroke. After making two or fewer three-pointers in four of five games, Murphy has combined to make 10 from deep in the Owls’ last two contests. He’s had back-to-back 20 point games, adding 6-of-7 free throws, five rebounds, an assist, a block and a steal against Southern Miss. If Rice basketball is going to get back on track, Murphy will be a catalyst.

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Rice Women’s Basketball: Owls top LA Tech with Ogwumike sidelined

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Rice Women’s Basketball was without their star guard but still managed to blow past Louisiana Tech. The Owls are a perfect 5-0 in Conference USA play.

Rice women’s basketball had won in a variety of ways on their way to a C-USA leading 24-game winning streak. They’d blown out countless teams and played close contests with others. But they’d never won without their best player on the court — they hadn’t had to.

The white and blue-clad Owls showed no timidity when they took the court without Erica Ogwumike on Thursday night against Louisiana Tech. The senior guard had suffered an injury against FIU that kept her sidelined against Louisiana Tech. She did not dress for the game and has no official timetable on her return. However, the expectation remains she’ll be back sooner rather than later.

If that wasn’t enough, the team was hit with sickness during the week. Rice dressed a half dozen players for their first practice of the week and had to send coaches and players home to rest. “We were barely able to practice,” head coach Tina Langely said postgame, not as an excuse, but as a credit to the performance her shorthanded squad had put together against a conference foe.

With Ogwumike out, there were some jitters. Rice had a few shot clock violations and lost possessions early on, clearly impacted by the loss of their primary ballhandler. What never wavered was their defense. Rice has now held 15 of their last 24 (and three of their last five) C-USA opponents to 50 points or fewer. Louisiana Tech shot a season-low 26 percent from the field.

“I love the pride that they take on the defensive end of the floor. I think it speaks to the character of our team.” Langely said. “Defense is about your heart and your effort and you don’t usually get a lot of credit from the defensive end of the floor as individuals. And you see our team really comes together and gives all that they have to defend well.”

That defense turned into just enough offense. Rice scored 13 points on fast breaks, relying on Jasmine Smith and Destiny Jackson to push the team down the court. Once the team stretched the lead to double digits at halftime, Louisiana Tech never got closer than eight for the remainder of the game.

Final Stats

Player of the game – Sydne Wiggins

On a night in which only two Owls reached double-digit points, it was the defensive performers who stood out. Nancy Mulkey registered her 200th career block and a career-best 15 rebounds, but it was the furious play of Sydne Wiggins that stood out the most. She was relentless on that side of the court, registering one steal, two blocks and plenty of headaches for the Owls’ opponent. Langley praised her focus, “She plays with such poise,” Langely said, “[She] has a great IQ. She brings so much to the court for us.” With Ogwumike on the bench, Wiggins was a much-needed energizer.

Up Next

Saturday they host Southern Miss with tip-off scheduled for 2:00 p.m. Then the team gets a few days off before a Thursday/Friday road trip to play UTEP and UTSA.

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Rice Football: 10 Takeaways from 2019 season

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The 2019 Rice Football season has come and gone. Spring ball will be here soon, but first a look back at what we learned about this team last season.

The 2019 college football season ended with purple and gold confetti falling from the rafters of the New Orleans Super Dome. Rice Football will host the defending champion LSU Tigers at NRG Stadium in 2020. Before we get there, a few observations about what we learned about the Owls this season and what might need to change moving forward.

The good

1. The Rice defense is the real deal

The Owls held eventual top-10 Baylor scoreless in the second half and jumped out to a 20-0 lead 0n North Texas, eventually beating the Mean Green on the back of some spectacular defensive plays. They shored up their most glaring deficiency, the long ball, and found a way to limit some of the most prolific passers in Conference USA. A year removed from finishing 11th in total defense against C-USA foes, Rice improved to sixth in 2019.

2. This team has star power

Not only has Mike Bloomgren retooled the roster with D1-caliber players, but he’s also added names that people outside of South Main will know. Players like Austin Trammell, Bradley Rozner, Blaze Alldredge and Treshawn Chamberlain are stars in Conference USA. All earned postseason honors of some sort, with Alldredge being named first-team All C-USA by the conference and Pro Football Focus. Better still, all are slated to return next season.

3. The Owls have hit on the vast majority of their transfer targets

With the exception of offensive lineman Andrew Mike, a transfer from Florida in Bloomgren’s first season, Rice has hit home run after home run in the Transfer Portal. They’ve gone three-for-three with JUCO additions (Alldredge, Rozner and Naeem Smith) and gotten game-winning production from graduate transfers across the offense. There should be more additions on this front in the coming weeks.

4. The 2020 schedule gets a lot easier

Rice football gets Army at home next season while swapping out a slate of three Power 5 opponents for LSU, an FCS school (Lamar) and Houston. It’s plausible the 2019 team could have won at least a couple of additional games against the 2020 schedule, and Rice returns the vast majority of their overall production.

5. Rice proved they can win with offense and with defense

Rice beat North Texas with suffocating defense, keeping one of Conference USA’s best quarterbacks out of the endzone. A week later they beat UTEP with offense, rallying from a halftime deficit to win on the road. As good as the defense was, this team wasn’t one-dimensional in their wins.

Areas of concern

6. Inconsistent quarterback play remains a problem
  1. Shawn Stankavage
  2. Jackson Tyner
  3. Evan Marshman
  4. Wiley Green
  5. Parker Towns
  6. Tom Stewart
  7. JoVoni Johnson

Throw in wildcat quarterback Juma Otoviano and you’ve got way too long of a list. Rice hasn’t managed to keep the same hands under center for an entire season yet since Mike Bloomgren arrived at South Main. Awful injury luck has been a component of the quarterback quandary, but poor play has been equally culpable. If Rice football is going to take the next step, finding ONE passer for 2020 is a must. They’ll have a few to choose from: Green, grad transfer Mike Collins and JUCO transfer TJ McMahon.

7. The rest of the receiving corps never broke out

Rice is never going to post numbers akin to the spread offenses that have become ubiquitous with today’s spread offenses. That said, the ratio of pass catching options skewed to an extreme this season. Only two Rice receivers (Bradley Rozner and Austin Trammell) caught at least 20 passes. August Pitre third with 17, less than 1.5 per game. Jake Bailey was limited to a part-time role. Zane Knipe wasn’t healthy. None of the pass catching tight ends we’d hope to see materialized into consistent options. Whoever plays quarterback will need more than two options in the passing game.

8. The offensive identity seems uncertain

The Rice offense that started the season 0-9 looked fairly foreign from the version that ended the season 0-3. A lot of the core concepts were there, but the influence of offensive coordinator Jerry Mack was undeniable. Mack said after the season they’d retain as much of that simplicity as possible, but Bloomgren was careful to note they weren’t going to throw out the playbook either. What that means for 2020 is anybody’s guess.

9. It’s hard to consistently hit on transfers

Last year Rice brought in seven transfers who were expected to compete for starting jobs. Each of them — Tom Stewart, Naeem Smith, Bradley Rozner, Brian Chaffin, Justin Gooseberry, Nick Leverett and Charlie Booker — either started or were important contributors. The hit rate was as close to 100 percent as could have been reasonably expected. Doing that well in the transfer market for two years in a row is really hard to do.

10. Expectations are rising

Two wins in Bloomgren’s first season was okay. Three wins, and the fashion in which they came, were proof the Owls were headed in the right direction. 2020 is when everything is supposed to come together. The staff expects to be in a bowl game next winter, and that’s probably the baseline for the trajectory this team has set through two seasons.

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Conference USA Football: Takeaways from early 2020 schedule

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The 2020 Conference USA football schedule has been announced. Here are five thoughts from the early look at the upcoming season’s games.

1. Statement opportunity on opening night

Florida Atlantic’s first game under new head coach Willie Taggart has the potential to be national news. Minnesota will be coming off a Top 10 finish this year and will be looking to keep things rolling after their 11-win season. This game is scheduled for Thursday night, September 3, presumably on national television. C-USA needs to do better against Power 5 programs. This will be one of their best chances in 2020.

2. No more double byes

Having two off weekends last year was a scheduling quirk that was rather nice. It lengthened out the schedule (more football!) and gave teams an extra chance to rest up and get well. Most C-USA squads were able to avoid playing more than five or six consecutive games. 2020 marks the return to one off week, with some drawing rather inconvenient timing. Marshall and Southern Miss are off in Week 10, with only three games left on their schedules.

3. The first conference game comes early

Southern Miss hosts Louisiana Tech in Week 2 in the first C-USA game of the season. Both teams will have division title aspirations, making the game pretty important in spite of the early date. Old Dominion hosts FIU in Week 3 and Middle Tennessee in Week 4 before the bulk of the conference games get underway in Week 5.

4. UAB’s has a case for the most favorable schedule

The Blazers get New Mexico State, Alabama A&M, South Alabama and Miami (which was shutout by Louisiana Tech in their bowl game) in nonconference play. Their most challenging road trip will be Halloween night against Louisiana Tech with most of their toughest games coming at home. They’ll host WKU and Southern Miss. On paper, things set up pretty nicely for UAB.

5. Marshall has another tough road

In addition to a nonconference slate which includes East Carolina, Pitt and Boise State, the remainder of Marshall’s schedule is filled with quirks. After hosting Boise State (Sep. 26) and Rice (Oct. 3), they don’t play consecutive home games until Nov. 14 and Nov. 21. Their crossover opponents  (Louisiana Tech and Rice) are far from the easiest pair they could have drawn. As if that wasn’t all, they play Boise State, Rice, WKU, Louisiana Tech and Florida Atlantic in a five-game stretch. Oof.

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Rice Football 2020: Owls in the NFL Divisional Round Update

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The last remaining Rice football alums have been eliminated from the NFL Playoffs. Here’s a rundown of all the NFL Owls who played in the Divisional Round.

There are former Rice football players scattered across the NFL. Stay tuned each week for their game results and notables from each player.

Divisional Round Results

49ers 27 – Vikings 26 (Sendejo)
Titans 28 – Ravens 12
Chiefs 51 – Texans 31 (Gaines)
Packers 28 – Seahawks 23 (Ellerbee, Willson)

Andrew Sendejo, Saf, Vikings

Sendejo was active in a Vikings secondary that didn’t have many opportunities to shine. 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo attempted just 19 passes on Saturday, the longest going for 22 yards. San Francisco had four times as many rushing attempts (47) as completions (11). Sendejo had three tackles in the loss.

Emmanuel Ellerbee, LB, Seahawks

Ellerbee was placed injured reserve prior to the start of the season. He did not appear in any games with the Seahawks this year and wasn’t on the field for Seattle’s playoff run which ended in the Divisional Round.

Luke Willson, TE, Seahawks

Willson’s season came to an end on Sunday night in a close loss the Packers. He caught the only ball thrown his way, an eight-yard reception. More notably, he registered the first carry of his six-year NFL career, gaining one yard.

Phillip Gaines, CB, Texans

Gaines was placed on injured reserve following an ankle injury suffered during the Texans’ Week 8 game against the Colts. He wasn’t available for the Texans playoff run. Instead, he had to watch a gut-wrenching come-from-behind victory by the Chiefs. After falling behind 24-0, Kansas City went on to score 41 unanswered points and win.

More Owls in the NFL

From practice squads to current free agents, there are others Owls on the cusp of returning to active rosters. Find more detail on current contractual agreements and former Rice football players waiting for their next opportunity here.

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