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Rice Football: 3 Resolutions for 2019

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Rice football made encouraging progress in 2018 in the first year under Mike Bloomgren. Here are three resolutions for the Owls on the gridiron in 2019.

1. To finish off another strong recruiting class

When asked about his 2018 recruiting class in fall camp head coach Mike Bloomgren said he didn’t think there was a miss in the group. On one hand, that feels a lot like coachspeak, but after seeing the season play out how it did, he might be right.

Rice’s depth chart will be filled with underclassmen again this year, but there’s still plenty of room for impact players at the right positions. The Owls signed 17 players in the early signing period. They still have room for several more before the 2019 class is in the books.

2. To not have to play the backup backup backup backup quarterback

Injuries are a part of every football season, but few seasons play out as unfortunate on the injury front as the Owls’ 2018 campaign. Rice lost Shawn Stankavage and Evan Marshman to injury during the year. Jackson Tyner and Sam Glaesmann were bumped down the depth chart for performance and scheme considerations leaving freshman Wiley Green as the next man up when “next man up” was called against FIU.

Entering 2019, Green and Marshman will battle it out for the starting position. Green is probably the frontrunner at this point, but regardless who takes the first snap of the season, Rice would like to not have to find their next starter working with the scout team at the start of the New Year.

3. To win more games

At risk of stating the obvious, the end goal of this game is to win. Rice tallied two victories in 2018, bookending their season with wins over Prairie View and Old Dominion. Two wins is the new floor for the Owls in 2019 and Mike Bloomgren himself said “we will not put a ceiling on this team at any point… what we will do is talk about how we’re going to work.”

The “process” has been talked about for a full year at South Main. 2019 will be Year 2. It won’t be the finished product by any means, but the wheels have been turning long enough for the results to start flowing and they will. Rice had close calls in games against Houston, Hawaii, North Texas and UTEP, among others. If the Owls play more complete games in 2019 the wins will come.

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WBB: Owls riding high entering conference play

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Rice Women’s basketball finished off a strong non-conference slate and looks forward to CUSA play beginning in the new year.

The Rice Women’s Basketball team began the 2018-2019 season strong, rounding out a 9-3 record in non-conference play with a road win over Incarnate Word on Saturday. The Owls have held serve against the vast majority of their opponents, with their three losses all coming at the hands of quality teams.

Rice lost a pair of mostly competitive games to Texas A&M and UCLA, both NCAA Tournament teams last year, as well as a road contest against a North Carolina squad which could make a postseason bid of their own in March. A win in one of those games would have been big, but the effort the Owls put forth is an encouraging start.

As far as individual efforts go, Erica Ogwumike picked up right where she left off last season. The Owls leading scorer averaged 17.9 points per game last season and has matched the same scoring clip so far this year, averaging 17.9 points and 11.2 rebounds per game. She’s scored in double-digits in all but one of the Owls’ first 11 games with six double-doubles.

Joining Ogwumike in the everyday lineup has been senior Nicole Iademarco and freshman Jasmine Smith. Lauren Grigsby has been important off the bench, averaging 9.7 points with 15 steals, second most on the team. It’s been a true team effort with 10 players averaging 12 or more minutes per game.

The Owls will get a few days off for the New Year before CUSA play starts with a pair of road trips. They take on Southern Miss on Jan. 3 and Louisiana Tech on Jan. 5 before returning home for their first conference home game on Jan. 10 against UTSA.

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Rice Athletics 2018: A Year in Review

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Rice athletics produced some memorable moments in 2018. Here’s an overview of how the Owls faired on the court, the field and in the gym over the past year.

Baseball

The Wayne Graham era at South Main came to an end this year. Graham’s 27-season tenure at Rice included 1,173 wins, 23 NCAA Tournament appearances, seven College World Series appearances and one National Championship in 2003. He owns the best winning percentage in school history (.689). Following the season, new head baseball coach Matt Bragga was introduced as the Owls’ next manager.

Basketball (men’s and women’s)

The men have a  roster filled with young players who have fought through growing pains in 2018. The Owls won seven games last season and enter CUSA play with five wins already under their belt.

After making it to the second round of the WNIT last March, the women’s team started strong again in the 2018-2019 season. The squad went 8-3 in non-conference play with one game remaining on Dec. 29 and has aspirations of a CUSA Title and an NCAA Tournament appearance.

Football

2018 was an important year for Rice football. Mike Bloomgren earned his first win regular season win and first conference win as a head coach against Prairie View and Old Dominion, respectively. Owls’ star running back Trevor Cobb was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The team finished the year by signing 17 players during the early signing period including Jake Bailey, a Top 15 recruit in Conference USA.

Tennis (men’s and women’s)

The women’s team earned an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament, dropping a heartbreaker to Texas A&M in the Austin Regional. The men failed to make the NCAA Tournament, but Eric Rutledge and Sumit Sarkar were awarded All-CUSA First Team honors in doubles. Rutledge was named to the first team for singles. Sarkar was named to the second.

Soccer (women’s)

The team hung in through a tough 2018 campaign. Needing a tie in their final regular season game to clinch a spot in the CUSA Tournament, Rice topped Charlotte in the finale. The Owls finished the regular season at 4-5-1 before a loss in the conference tournament. There were a couple close calls with a 3-0 shutout of Louisiana Tech marking the top performance of the year.

Swimming (women’s)

Rice ended their year with a bang. The Owls finished second out of 31 scoring teams at the CSCAA National Invitational in March. Kaitlyn Swinney broke the school record for the 400-IM at the meet.

Volleyball

It was a banner year for the Owls’ volleyball squad. They set a program-best winning streak, reeling off 15-straight victories on their way to a Conference USA regular season championship. They’d add a CUSA Conference Championship too, thereby securing their fourth NCAA Tournament berth in school history.

Nicole Lennon, Lee Ann Cunningham and Grace Morgan were named to the CUSA First Team while Anota Adekunle and Carly Graham were selected to the CUSA All-Freshman team.

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North Texas game preview

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Rice basketball went 5-8 in non-conference play, but hope to put all of that behind them with a big win in their first CUSA game against North Texas.

The final game of 2018 marks the start of a new stretch of the season for Rice basketball. The Owls have 14 games remaining on their regular season schedule, all coming against Conference USA opponents. The next contest comes at home against North Texas on Saturday, Dec. 29. TV broadcast will be on ESPN+ with radio available on the Stretch Internet Portal.

North Texas 12-1 (0-0), Last 5 (4-1)

  • W, 77-66 vs UAPB
  • W, 74-65 @ New Mexico
  • W, 63-61 @ UT Arlington
  • W, 80-69 @ Indiana State
  • L, 73-57 @ Oklahoma

Rice 5-8 (0-0), Last 5 – (2-3)

  • L, 83-66 vs Omaha
  • W, 75-67 @ Rio Grande Valley
  • L, 99-89 (OT) vs UC Santa Barbara
  • W, 78-73 vs St Edwards
  • L, 75-68 vs Lamar

North Texas players to watch

The Mean Green enter the game with the best record among all CUSA teams thanks to a well-balanced lineup. Six different North Texas players average at least 10 points per game. Junior guard Ryan Woolridge has been the catalyst for the offense this year, scoring single-digit points three times in 13 games. He registered a triple-double earlier this month against Indiana State.

On the defensive end, sophomore forward Zachary Simmons is one of eight players in the conference averaging at least one block per game. He’s been a rebounding machine, of late, grabbed eight or more boards in for of his last five games.

Rice keys to victory

For Rice, any upset attempt is going to start with shooting. The Owls shot 35.1 percent from the field against Omaha their last time out, the second-worst shooting performance of the season. They had a season-high 36 three-point attempts but connected on just nine (25.0 percent).

Chris Mullins, who has carried this team over the last few weeks, scored a team-high 17 points against Omaha but needed someone else to step up on a tough shooting night. It’s going to take a full team performance to beat North Texas.

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Owls take stock of season entering conference play

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Rice basketball is in the midst of a rebuilding effort led by a host of young players hoping to bring success back to South Main. It’s going to take some work.

The 2018-2019 season has been filled with plenty of learning opportunities for Rice basketball. The Owls won their first three games at Tudor Fieldhouse but struggled to find their rhythm throughout the next month, sliding to a 5-8 record entering the Christmas holidays.

Five wins put the Owls in the bottom half of the conference with their first Conference USA game looming on Dec. 29 against North Texas. The Mean Green sit at 12-1. They’ll be a tough test for Rice, but the road to get there hasn’t been much easier.

Penn, Houston and Wichita State all made the NCAA Tournament last season and BYU and UCSB have both put together winning seasons so far. Rice played all five of them. “If you go down the list, that schedule has been pretty challenging,” head coach Scott Pera said following their loss to Omaha, “There’s a lot of good teams on there that we’ve had to play. Hopefully that will help us in conference [play]. That’s part of the plan.”

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The plan, as Pera refers to it, is in its developmental stages. Outside of Jack Williams, Ako Adams and Robert Martin the Owls key pieces on the floor are almost entirely freshman. Rice is led by starting guard Chris Mullins in scoring (13.1 points per game).

Fellow freshman Drew Peterson and Quentin Millora-Brown have earned starting spots with freshmen Josh Parrish and Trey Murphy III playing meaningful minutes off the bench. The youth permeating the roster is a challenge for Pera and his staff, one he hopes will pay dividends down the road. “It’s a bit like a rollercoaster,” Pera admitted, “I feel our guys are connected. I feel we have shown a lot of growth.”

The team is in the early stages of that developmental process. It’s going to take some time. Pera knows that, and he knows now is the time to press in rather than throw in the towel. “You gotta believe in your guys. You know that they’re capable… What can you do? Get back in the gym and keep working,” Pera proclaimed adamantly.

The rebuild won’t happen overnight. Rice is working and they’ll continue to be tested from this point onward. There are going to be more licks with high points mixed in. It’s going to be every bit as much the rollercoaster Pera described. The Owls will have to do their best to make sure they don’t get stuck in a loop.

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