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Rice Women’s Basketball rallies late to top North Carolina A&T

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Rice Women’s Basketball rallied from a fourth quarter deficit to beat North Carolina A&T and secure the Owls’ first win of the 2024-2025 season.

Playing another game against a challenging non-conference opponent days removed from a one-score defeat, Rice women’s basketball was pushed to the wire once again. The Owls fell behind to North Carolina A&T early, struggling to score the ball effectively and losing the rebounding battle against the Aggies in the opening quarters of the game.

Rice never led in the first quarter and took their first edge early in the second frame on a three-pointer from freshman Aniah Alexis, who scored nine of her 12 points in that quarter. Her push kept the Owls in the game giving them a chance to work through some of their early season rust in real time,

“Aniah’s special. I’m so thankful she’s in a Rice jersey. The kid scored a thousand points in her senior year of high school. She knows how to score the ball. She’s not afraid of the moment,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said, “For a freshman only in the second game of her career to say she knows multiple positions and the willingness to play wherever I need her, that’s really special. Aniah’s going to do a lot of tremendous things here at her career at Rice. This is just the beginning.”

More: Rice Women’s Basketball 2024-2025 Season Preview

Unfortunately for the Owls, Alexis’ beginning would come to a premature end. She folded out in the fourth quarter on the tail end of what was a furious comeback from the home team. Rice trailed by eight but quickly cut the lead down to one score thanks in large part to a dominant showing by Sussy Ngulefac, who led the Owls with 19 points and 10 rebounds, including the winning layup in the final minute.

It was far from a perfect performance, but as Edmonds reminded after the game, “winning is hard.” The Owls will take every victory they can get.

Final Box | Rice 61, North Carolina A&T 60

What They’re Saying

“It feels good to get in the win column. In the Monday night game we played really good in the first three quarters and not our greatest in the fourth. Tonight, unfortunately, felt a little flipped. We didn’t play our greatest in the first three then we played really well in the fourth. We were able to make a run in the fourth and win the game. There’s definitely things that we can still clean up, but they showed some fight tonight, the unwillingness to let the game slip away from us. Proud of them for that.” – Rice women’s basketball head coach Lindsay Edmonds

Key takeaway |  Downtown doubts

Alexis was the only Owl to knock down multiple three-pointers on Thursday night, going 2-for-7 from deep. Rice women’s basketball attempted 21 threes and made just four, with one apiece from Dominique Ennis and Emily Klaczek. Obviously, the perimeter shooting won’t struggle to this extent every night, but it’s something that should be better than 19 percent given the presence the Owls expect on the interior with Ngulefac and Shelby Hayes.

Rice was one of the better three-point shooting teams in the conference last season and has several of its better shooters back on the roster. It will get better than this, but it’s somewhat surprising to see the bottom of the range be this tenuous given the advantageous positions they should be able to create with this offense.

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Rice Basketball rides strong defensive start over FIU in season opener

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Rice Basketball head coach Rob Lanier is 1-0. The Owls’ stingy defense and clutch shooting powered them past FIU in their home opener.

Shortly after winning the opening tip, Caden Powell knocked down the first basket of the Rob Lanier era for Rice basketball. The 6-foot-10 transfer from Wyoming had five straight points to kickstart the Owls’ scoring which would come from a host of different players, still coalescing into the team they hope to be.

Reaching that point will require growth that can only be attained through court time against others who are not sporting blue and gray. No sooner had the Owls taken the lead did they see it slip away, victims of an 8-0 FIU run that offered the team their first true test which they passed quickly, rallying back with a 10-0 spurt of their own soon after to retake the lead. The game was on.

Tied at 21, the Owls leaned on a dominant defensive effort to create some separation. Rice outscored FIU 17-6 in the final seven minutes of the first half, holding their opponents to just 29 percent shooting in the first frame.

More: Rice Basketball 2024-2025 Season Preview

While the defense held the line, the offense started to heat up. An 11-point halftime lead for the Owls grew to as many as 17 in the second stanza, providing plenty of breathing room when FIU hit threes on the ensuing three possessions. The margin stayed tight from that point onward.

Powell, who registered a double-double with a team-high 17 points and 11 rebounds, made his presence felt again down the stretch, scoring each of the Owls’ last three field goals before both teams gave way to foul shots.

“Just get one kill, gotta get three stops in a row. Gotta seal the deal, just take care of the ball,” he said of the team’s focus in those final minutes. “Once we get those stops just take care of the ball and we’ll be good.”

Powell finished off his double-double and gave way to free throw attempts for his teammates. Rice shot 38 free throws, the most attempts at the stripe for the program since Nov. 22, 2019, against Milwaukee. Had the team been more efficient from the line — they made just 23 of those shots (61 percent) — this one could have been a blowout.

“We really couldn’t find an offensive rhythm. We weren’t moving the ball. We weren’t doing what we practice, offensively. We look scattered and a little hot potato there. Just stagnant,” head coach Rob Lanier summarized afterward. “Which is a good sign that we still scored 77 points and we played terrible on offense, from an execution standpoint and we missed a lot of free throws. So the pace wasn’t bad, but the efficiency wasn’t what we aspired to.”

Final Box | Rice 77, FIU 70

What They’re Saying

Key takeaway | Real, genuine defense, for a half

Playing great defense was something Lanier banged the table for all offseason. He guaranteed his teams would play with an intensity on that side of the ball that would be noticed. Early on, those proclamations seemed like premonitions. Rice held FIU to 28 percent shooting in the first half, suffocating their offense.

FIU shot 36.5 percent for the game, but it was a second-half split which included 50 percent from three that proved the most vexing.

“It’s a process,” Lanier said. “They’re a well-coached team. They’re going to make some shots, whatever. But the resistance wasn’t as great, the feeling, determination on defense to continuously get stops. We allowed the scoreboard to dictate our intensity. That’s part of our growth.”

Lanier noted there were some first-game jitters, calling parts of the operation “choppy”, but when asked if there was one thing about this game he’d like to replicate moving forward, his answer came with a grin: “the outcome”.

Up Next: Florida State (Sat)

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Rice Women’s Basketball drops opener to South Dakota State

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Rice Women’s Basketball built an early lead but couldn’t close things out, falling to South Dakota State in their home opener.

The depth of the 2024-2025 Rice women’s basketball roster has been a talking point for months. Even without graduated point guard Destiny Jackson, who was in attendance Monday to participate in the pre-game ring ceremony and AAC Championship banner unveiling, and Malia Fisher, who was held out for health reasons, the Owls seemed unflappable in the early goings.

Dominique Ennis paced the team in scoring, delivering a pair of early three-pointers as Rice fought for an early lead. The first test would come when Sussy Ngulefac picked up an early foul, leaving the game a few minutes later and kicking off that ballyhooed deep rotation.

With Ngulefac on the bench, Victoria Flores and Aniah Alexis made their Rice debuts. Shelby Hayes came through with six first half boards, leading all players. When Ngulefac returned the Owls’ lead had grown to seven.

More: Rice Women’s Basketball 2024-2025 Season Preview

Ngulefac made her presence felt in earnest at the start of the third quarter, scoring five of the Owls’ first seven points to give Rice its first double-digit lead. A dominant edge on the boards at that point put the home team in position for a resume-boosting win, but when the fourth quarter arrived, so too did a boisterous South Dakota State comeback.

After being held to no more than 15 points in each of the first three frames the Jackrabbits exploded for 26 points in the fourth, erasing a 13-point Rice advantage. South Dakota State took its first lead since the opening quarter with less than two to go in regulation. A hurried last-second shot was off the mark as the Owls saw their first game slip away.

“We didn’t hit shots early on in the fourth quarter and it snowballed into our defensive intensity,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said. “When we’re hitting shots, we defend really, really, really well. And when we’re not hitting shots, we’re thinking about the shots that we didn’t hit.”

Those shots they didn’t hit cost the Owls a big non-conference win. Shorthanded or not, this a problem Rice women’s basketball has to figure out if they’re going to have the sort of season they’re expecting on South Main.

Final Box | South Dakota State 65 – Rice 63

What They’re Saying

Key takeaway | One-two punch

As successful as last season was for Rice Women’s Basketball, it was far from a smooth ride. The Owls had to make their run through the AAC Tournament as a double-digit seed, partly because they were seemingly hardly ever at full strength. Ngulefac missed the early portions of the season with injuries, coming into her own down the stretch when the team needed her most.

Ngulefac’s emergence was essential because it coincided with Hayes’ injury, which ended her season prematurely. Ngulefac played 19 of the Owls’ 34 games. Hayes played 18. Getting both on the court in the same game was a rarity. Those in attendance at Tudor Fieldhouse on Monday night saw how impactful that tandem can be when operating at their respective peaks.

“I feel like Sussy and Shelby showed up in a big way tonight and won that battle,” Edmonds said. “One came in and did their job and the next one came in and did their job. They did a really good job together being a one-two punch. That was good to see.”

Hayes and Ngulefac each reached double figures, combining for 23 points and 12 rebounds.

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2024-2025 Rice Basketball Season Preview

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Rice Basketball embarks on a new era under head coach Rob Lanier this season. What will the new-look Owls be able to offer in his debut season on South Main?

Emotions are always high when you hire a new coach. A new day dawns and all the prior struggles and frustrations are momentarily thrust back into the depths. But the games will eventually start again and the neverending cycle of hope and tragedy that plagues all sports will soon return. New Rice basketball head coach Rob Lanier is responsible for ensuring those woes are shortlived and the Owl faithful see a product on the court that makes them proud.

Lanier didn’t shy away from those obligations when he first addressed Rice fans the day he was hired. “We’re gonna win. It ain’t a hope. It ain’t a dream. It’s a reality. So you can get prepared for that,” he said at the podium that afternoon. In a short time, those words will be put to the test.

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2024-2025 Rice Women’s Basketball Season Preview

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Expectations are high for the 2024-2025 Rice women’s basketball season following an NCAA Tournament appearance under now fourth-year head coach Lindsay Edmonds.

Rice women’s basketball has hit its stride under Lindsay Edmonds, raising the bar in each successive season with her at the helm of the program, culminating in an NCAA Tournament appearance last season. That taste has everyone on the roster — which returns the vast majority of its key players, sans one — eager for an encore this coming season.

“This is the most veteran, the most mature team that we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Edmonds said. With that experience comes a different level of urgency and an even greater sense of purpose. “We’re going faster and the expectations are just higher,” Edmonds declared.

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For those checking in for the first time, or those returning, a quick programming note. Special features like this are reserved for our subscribers. Have questions? You can get those answered in our monthly Q&As and get access to all practice notes, recruiting updates and features like this one when you subscribe on Patreon today.

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