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BREAKING: Rice Basketball hires Rob Lanier as next head coach

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Rice basketball has named Rob Lanier as its next head coach. Lanier brings more than 30 years of collegiate coaching experience to South Main.

Lanier was most recently the head coach of SMU this past season. He led SMU to a 20-13 record, including 11-7 in AAC play. One of those wins came at Tudor Fieldhouse where Laniers’ Mustangs blasted Rice basketball 95-69. Athletic Director Tommy McClelland evidently was impressed with what he saw, hiring Lanier a little more than a month later.

Prior to arriving at SMU, Lanier spent three seasons at Georgia State. He went 53-30 there, taking the Panthers to the NCAA Tournament in the 2022 season before being hired at SMU. Lanier also had a prior stint at Siena where he took the Saints to the NCAA Tournament in 2002.

In between his head coaching stops, Lanier served as an assistant at Virginia, Florida, Texas and Tennessee. He’s worked under prominent head coaches in the sport such as Rick Barnes and Billy Donovan, among others.

Lanier’s dismissal was a surprise to many in the industry. He wasn’t a free agent long. He takes over for Scott Pera who was relieved of his duties just 10 days before Lanier’s appointment. The university has a formal introductory press conference planned for Tuesday. More details to come.

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Rice Women’s Basketball falls short at LSU in NCAA Tournament

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Rice Women’s Basketball pushed LSU to the wire, dropping a hard-fought game to the defending champs in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament.

A sea of frustrated purple and gold clan onlookers bemoaned a season-low first quarter point total for the defending national champion LSU Tigers following a physical battle with Rice Women’s basketball in the opening stanza of their NCAA Tournament game. The Owls held the Tigers to 12 points, and while they only managed six themselves, it was evident from the start they were going to give LSU all they had.

“Once we got over that first punch that they threw, we absolutely hung with them,” Malia Fisher said. “I think it was just about playing our brand of basketball and hitting shots early to spread their defense out and then being aggressive, and like I said, not being scared and taking it to them.”

Even when LSU went on a 10-2 run, Rice never looked rattled. The Owls weathered the storm, staying vigilant on defense and got key shots in key moments, many of them coming from the long range of Emily Klaczek whose final three of the first half silenced a full house at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rogue.

More: Potential head coach candidates for Rice men’s basketball

Despite being heavy underdogs, Rice never looked rattled. In the waning moments of the third quarter an 11-2 run put LSU up by 11, their largest lead of the game. Malia Fisher spent most of that time on the bench, struggling with foul trouble, yet the Owls battled back with Destiny Jackson leading the charge and Hailey Adams knocking down some big free throws along the way.

“I can’t hear myself think,” Fisher joked afterward, noting how the environment wasn’t too much for this team. Even with the noise, Rice pushed back.

That 11-point deficit dwindled as the fourth quarter progressed. Sussy Ngulefac’s layup with 1:56 got Rice within six points. The Owls wouldn’t get any closer than that, watching the clock wind down after a hard-fought battle against a battled-tested LSU team.

Final Box | LSU 70 – Rice 60

What They’re Saying

“I’m incredibly proud to be their coach. We came in here and we wanted to have the exact same mindset that we had in the conference tournament and that was to come in and play our best brand of basketball and to not quit and to not give up and be relentless… I’m incredibly proud. We came in here. We fought for four quarters. We won two of those quarters against the defending national champion. I thought we did a lot of great things, but the main thing that I’m proud of is that we never for one second quit or looked like we didn’t believe that we belonged in this game. Very, very proud. I don’t know if I can say that enough.”” – Head coach Lindsay Edmonds

Key takeaway | Poise under pressure

Strip away the seeds and the fanfare. If you handed a copy of this game to someone who didn’t know LSU was the defending national champions and Rice women’s basketball had only earned their ticket to play in the dance a week ago, Friday’s result wouldn’t have given many clues.

LSU turned the ball over 24 times. They shot 42 percent from the field and never led by more than 11 points, despite being nearly a 30-point favorite by most oddsmakers.

Rice won on the margins. They got to loose balls and never let effort be the differentiator between success and failure. For 40 minutes, it looked like the Owls wanted it more than the Tigers. In the end, LSU’s edge in athleticism and height — they outrebounded Rice 42-29 — proved decisive. But not once did it ever seem as if the Owls would go down without a fight.

“We were not afraid of the moment and we were ready to play. We proved that we were here and we were not going to just be somebody that they were going to be able to run over or walk all over,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said. “And that was because of their unwavering belief in one another and their unwavering confidence in our gameplan and what we were trying to get accomplished today.”

The 2023-2024 Rice women’s basketball season comes to an end in Baton Rouge, but the showing was about as impressive as it could have been in a loss. The unflappable Owls will be back. They’re already charting a course for another trip to the dance next year.

“We talked about it in the locker room. Remember this feeling. Remember what it felt like to get here but next year we want to go further,” Edmonds said. “Everything matters. We’ve already started talking about that. And I think everybody’s going to be hungry.”

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14-Seed Rice Women’s Basketball to face LSU in 2024 NCAA Tournament

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Rice Women’s Basketball has earned a 14-Seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament and will open up against 3-Seed LSU in Baton Rouge.

For the first time since 2019, Rice Women’s Basketball is going dancing. The Owls clinched an automatic berth in the 2024 NCAA Tournament when they cut down the nets this week in Forth Worth, TX, winning the American Conference Championship. They found out their postseason destination on Selection Sunday:

Rice will be the No. 14 Seed in the Albany 2 Region where they’ll face 3-Seed LSU in the first round. Should the Owls pull off the upset and advance beyond that, they’ll play the winner of 6-Seed Louisville and 11-Seed MTSU.

Rice and LSU will tip off Friday at 3:00 pm. The game will be televised on ESPN

This is the Owls’ fourth trip to the NCAA Tournament in program history and head coach Lindsay Edmonds has become the only Rice women’s basketball head coach to reach the tournament in their first three seasons with the school.

The Owls’ first appearance as a program came in 2000 when the 13-Seed Owls upset 4-Seed UC Santa Barbara in the first round. They then advanced to the second round and fell to 5-Seed North Carolina. Their second trip came in 2005 as an 11-Seed where they fell to 6-Seed Georgia in the first round.

Erica Ogwumike and Nancy Mulkey headlined the most recent Rice Women’s Basketball team to go dancing. That squad was a 12-Seed, pitted against 5-Seed Marquette in the first round. That team dropped a close overtime contest and was denied another chance at the tournament when the 2020 postseason was canceled with the outbreak of COVID-19.

The complete bracket is available here.

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Potential Rice Basketball head coaching candidates

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Rice Basketball is in the market for a new head coach after moving on from Scott Pera. Who might the Owls target for the job?

Following an 11-21 season, Scott Pera is out as the head coach of Rice Basketball. This decision doesn’t come as a surprise to many and likely has been in the cards for some time now, giving athletic director Tommy McClelland ample time to begin mentally preparing a shortlist of potential targets. Who might the Owls tap to be the next head man on the court?

McClelland was adamant Rice basketball had a bright future ahead of it. “Talent is not an issue. We can get them here and we can win here,” he said, pointing toward recent successes like Quincy Olivari as well as NBA players who came from Rice like Trey Murphy and Drew Peterson. “I want to win,” he declared, making his intentions crystal clear.

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BREAKING: Rice Basketball parts ways with head coach Scott Pera

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Effective immediately, Scott Pera has been relieved of duties as the head coach of Rice Basketball following a 10-21 season, his seventh at South Main.

The Scott Pera era of Rice basketball has officially come to an end, the program announced on Thursday, the day following the end of the Owls’ season with a conference tournament loss to Wichita State. Pera leaves Rice with a 96-127 record across seven seasons, finishing 11-21 in his most recent campaign.

Athletic Director Tommy McClelland issued this statement:

“I appreciate the efforts of Scott and his staff and their dedication to their student-athletes, but over the course of this season, it became apparent to me that a change in the leadership of our men’s basketball team was needed for it to become a championship-caliber program. President DesRoaches and the Board of Trustees have shown a great desire for this program to take its place among the best in the AAC and agreed with my assessment that a coaching change was the appropriate step towards reaching that goal.”

The move isn’t surprising, considering how this season has transpired. Rice went 5-13 in American Athletic Conference play, winning just one conference game at Tudor Fieldhouse, a feat they didn’t achieve until February 24 against East Carolina. The team was 6-10 at home and had won more than two consecutive games just once all season, a December sweep of Incarnate Word, Northwestern State and Prairie View A&M.

Pera finished above .500 just twice in his seven years, going 15-13 in 2020-2021 and 19-16 in 2022-2023 as he guided the team to a CBI Tournament appearance and a postseason win, a first-round victory over Duquesne.

With veteran leaders Max Fiedler and Travis Evee out of eligibility and the program moving in the wrong direction, it was evident a change in leadership was necessary. Rice will immediately begin a national search for Pera’s replacement. Van Green will take over as the Owls’ interim head coach during the transition period.

** Photo Credit: Maria Lysaker **
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