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Rice Basketball drops Senior Day battle to North Texas

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Rice basketball and North Texas battled back and forth throughout the first half before the Mean Green found another gear and pulled away, handing the Owls a loss on Senior Day.

The latest edition of an intrastate rivalry between Rice basketball and North Texas began with a technical foul against the Owls, dictated by AAC league rules because of shot clocks that weren’t working properly. That malfunction spotted the Mean Green to an early 1-0 lead and seemed to light a fire under the Owls, who didn’t trail for long.

After trading a few early baskets, Rice went on an 11-0 run, erasing a North Texas lead and giving the Owls a two-point advantage. From that point onward, the game was on.

Travis Evee, who led Rice in scoring with 21 points for the game, helped extend the Owls’ lead to as many as five points in the first half. When North Texas leveled the score once more in the second half Rice turned to everyone they could to keep the game within reach, but nobody had much success shooting after the halftime buzzer.

Rice made six field goals in the second half, shooting a dismal 22.2 percent from the floor. No amount of defensive production was going to make up for that level of shooting woe. The Owls end their season on a four-game losing streak heading into the AAC Tournament.

Final Box | North Texas 71 – Rice 55

Key takeaway | Insurmountable shooting slumps

Scoring droughts have been a persistent challenge for Rice basketball this season. There always seem to be a few moments in each game when something gets gummed up in the offense, causing prolonged stretches without points. Often, that’s proved disastrous for the Owls, allowing early leads to evaporate and causing close games to get away from them in the second half.

Against North Texas, Rice has two such instances. In the first half, Rice missed five field goals in a row, falling behind nine. The combo of Evee and Max Fiedler helped right the ship, powering the Owls back to an even game.

The next stretch came midway through the second half. Rice missed eight shots in a row and 12 shots out of 13. That resulted in a span of 10 minutes of court time with two made baskets, transforming a 1-point lead into a 10-point deficit. When Rice was forced to take a timeout with 2:24 on the clock, they had all but run out of time to mount a comeback.

This has been a streaky team all season. They can turn it on and score in bunches, but if they don’t find a way to smooth over their droughts and make them either less frequent or less severe, they won’t be sticking around very long in the upcoming conference tournament.

Up Next: AAC Tournament

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2024 AAC Women’s Basketball Tournament Preview

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The 2024 AAC Women’s Basketball Tournament is slated to tip off in Fort Worth, TX this week. Here’s a preview of the action.

The Favorite: Tulsa

Temira Poindexter and Delanie Crawford rank second and third in the AAC in scoring. No team in the league boasts a tandem as productive as this one has been for the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa has the longest active winning streak in league play, five games, and head-to-head wins over No. 2 Seed North Texas and No. 3 Seed Temple (Tulsa split the season series with Temple 1-1).

The Contenders: North Texas, Temple

North Texas might be the most consistent team in the league. They shoot the ball well and play solid defense almost every game. In total, that’s driven the Mean Green to the top scoring margin in the AAC, outscoring opponents by 11.2 points, which is more than double every team in the league outside of Temple.

As for Temple, the Owls rank second in the AAC in defense, allowing 62.7 points per game. Opponents are shooting just 29 percent from three against the Owls and below 40 percent from the floor. There’s a reason the league standings ended in a three-way tie at the top with these three good teams.

The Dark Horse: South Florida

Once picked as the preseason No. 1 team, South Florida got off to a slow start in league play and fell toward the rest of the pack in the standings. The talent is still there, albeit with some inconsistency in performance from game to game. The Bulls lead the conference in assist/turnover ratio. If they can play clean basketball and keep up their solid defense they could make some noise.

The Wild Card: Memphis

The Tigers were left for dead in mid-February, bottom dwellers in the standings with a 4-11 record. Then something clicked. They ended the season on a 5-1 run, knocking off East Carolina, Rice, Tulane, UTSA and UAB before falling to North Texas. They get a rematch with ECU in Fort Worth. One upset against Tulsa in the next round and their Cinderella dreams might not sound that farfetched.

The Bracket

The opening day of games will take place on Saturday, March 9, with the majority of the teams in action on Sunday, March 10. Here are the first two days of action. The full schedule is available on the conference website. All early-round games can be streamed on ESPN+, with the championship on ESPNU.

First Round | Saturday, March 9

Game 1: No. 13 Wichita State vs. No. 12 Florida Atlantic – 4 p.m. CT
Game 2: No. 14 Tulane vs. No. 11 SMU – 6 p.m. CT

Second Round | Sunday, March 10

Game 3: No. 9 East Carolina vs. No. 8 Memphis – 12 p.m. CT
Game 4: Game 1 winner vs. No. 5 South Florida – 2 p.m. CT
Game 5: No. 10 Rice vs. No. 7 UAB – 6 p.m. CT
Game 6: Game 2 winner vs. No. 6 Charlotte – 8 p.m. CT

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Rice Basketball comes up short at Charlotte

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Rice basketball stayed within striking distance but was never able to land a finishing blow, dropping a hard-fought game to Charlotte.

It wouldn’t have been readily apparent to any onlookers Wednesday night that the on-court battle they were witnessing was between teams on opposite ends of the American Conference standings. Rice basketball took Charlotte to the wire, coming within a timely basket or two of upsetting one of the AAC’s best.

Rice was able to keep things close thanks to an inspired performance by their defense. Charlotte shot just 36 percent from the field and 6-of-27 (22 percent) from three, essentially relying on forward Igor Milicic (26 points, 10 rebounds) to carry the rest of the team.

More: Roost Podcast — Spring Roundup

Charlotte led by seven at halftime and increased their edge to as many as 12 points. But each and every time the game got to the brink, Rice battled back. Midway through the second half, Travis Evee and Max Fiedler spurred an 11-2 run that brought the game within three points. Then the battle was on.

Both sides traded baskets as the clock wound down. Anthony Selden delivered a slashing layup to get the score within two with 26 seconds to play. Charlotte would hit their free throws and hold on, but not without some labored breathing down the stretch.

Final Box | Charlotte 69 – Rice 65

Key takeaway | Workable rotations

It’s taken most of the season to get to this point, but Rice basketball seems to have found itself the right balance of starters’ minutes, bench usage and rotations between the two units. Andrew Akuchie has been effective in his minutes, but so too has Anthony Selden off the bench and Keanu Dawes, albeit not as much against Charlotte.

This roster has talent, more so than it did at this point last season. Trusting that talent to come through in crucial situations should be the next step of a progressing program. It hasn’t resulted in victories as often as the Owls’ faithful would have hoped, but the pieces are there.

If Rice can add an effective three-point shot to a roster that is effective up close — Rice led Charlotte 40-26 in points in the paint — they could make some noise over the last few weeks of the season. The players are there.

Up Next: at North Texas (Wednesday, Mar. 9)

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Rice Women’s Basketball falls to UTSA, skids into AAC Tournament

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Rice Women’s Basketball dropped its fifth consecutive contest, falling on the road to UTSA in the final game of the regular season.

Malia Fisher went supernova, delivering a Herculean performance in the final Rice women’s basketball game of the regular season. She scored the first points for the Owls. She scored the last points. Altogether she tallied 30 points — more than the next two closest players on the court combined — and 12 boards. It wasn’t enough, though.

Despite Fisher’s efforts, Rice women’s basketball was unable to overcome a poor shooting night as a whole. The 30 percent shooting performance was most noticeable in the second quarter when UTSA opened up a close game and earned its first double-digit advantage. Then came the third period in which Rice made just two shots (both from Fisher) and saw their deficit grow to as many as 19 points.

More: Roost Podcast — Spring Roundup

The team never gave up, fighting and clawing from that seemingly insurmountable hole to get the game back within reach. Fisher’s trio of successive baskets in the final minutes got Rice within three. The comeback would stop there, however, as UTSA knocked down a layup and a few ensuing foul shots to secure the win and hand loss its fifth consecutive loss in conference play.

Final Box | UTSA 60 – Rice 52

Key takeaway | Coming in cold

You want to be playing your best ball in March. It has to be the most overused cliche in college basketball. The Owls had better hope it’s a cliche and nothing more. Of the 14 teams in the American Conference, only one has been worse over the last three weeks of the regular season than Rice. Tulane (3-15 in the AACP) has lost eight consecutive games.

The standings are so tight. One more win and the Owls probably could have snuck into the final double-bye, earning the No. 4 Seed instead of the No. 10 seed. Instead, the low mark in the standings serves as a gut punch for a team that was picked to finish third in the preseason polls and swept East Carolina and USF, the preseason frontrunners.

That sets up a very intriguing week ahead. At their best, this team took down Tulsa, the AAC’s regular season champ. Rice is going to need to recapture that magic if they want to reshape the narrative on a season that has not gone according to plan.

Up Next: AAC Tournament

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Rice Basketball can’t keep pace with red-hot Wichita State shooting

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Rice basketball traded blows early, but ran out of steam in the second half, falling on the road to Wichita State by a final score of 87-65.

Points were volleyed back and forth as Rice Basketball traded buckets with Wichita State in the early goings of their matchup on Saturday night. The first two field goals made, from each side, came from three, a harbinger of the fast-paced, high-scoring game which was about to unfold.

There were 10 ties and five lead changes through the first half. Travis Evee was productive, registering 11 points before the break. Max Fiedler tallied his 1,112th career rebound — the most in program history — as both sides shot better than 50 percent from the field and scored at will.

More: Roost Podcast — Spring Roundup

The second half was a different story. Wichita State opened the period on a 17-6 run, quickly turning a back-and-forth affair into a rout. “It went from three to 12 before we could blink,” head coach Scott Pera said of that pivotal second half run. “We needed someone to hit one.” That crucial basket didn’t come until the deficit had grown too large.

Rice would never get back within single digits from that point onward. Keanu Dawes, who had a team-high 12 points in the first half was held scoreless in the second half. As a team the Owls shot just 35 percent from the floor, unable to keep up with the Shockers’ torrid pace.

Final Box | Wichita State 87 – Rice 65

Key takeaway | Where’d the three go?

Rice basketball has built its offensive game plan around the three-point shot ever since Pera arrived on campus. They’ve generally had success doing things that way, at least when it has come to generating points on the offensive side. Against Wichita State, Rice made just six threes.

Travis Evee has been the go-to guy from deep for a while now. He was 3-of-8. But outside of his attempts, no other Rice players were a threat from long range. In fact, nobody else attempted more than three triples in the game.

A Rice offense without an effective threat from three is perplexing and perhaps it’s not surprising the team couldn’t keep pace with a productive offensive team on a night where the long ball was that fleeting.

The Owls don’t have time to lick their wounds and dwell on the failure, though. They have two games left to bust out of a tie with Wichita State in the conference standings and clinch a bye in the conference tournament.

“We’re going to battle and we’re going to prepare to win them both. It takes a team to stay together, through adversity, and not fracture,” Pera vowed after the game. “We’re going to keep working.”

Up Next: at Charlotte (Wednesday, Mar. 6)

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