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Can Scott Pera elevate Rice Basketball? November Q&A

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With football season winding down, Rice basketball was atop your questions for this month’s Q&A, specifically current head coach Scott Pera.

It’s been a tough start for Rice basketball this season, its seventh under the leadership of head coach Scott Pera. The Owls are 1-5 and have yet to finish within 10 points of a D1 team in five tries. Granted, the schedule has been grueling, but nevertheless, frustrations are understandable. This month’s Q&A focuses on Pera’s time at South Main and what’s next for him and the program.

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Q: Is Scott Pera on the hot seat? Should he fired if he has a losing record this year?

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Dominique Ennis, Rice Women’s Basketball drown TSU with threes

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Rice women’s basketball and Dominque Ennis exploded from long range, drowning Texas Southern in threes en route to a lopsided victory.

Rice women’s basketball returned home on Wednesday night in search of a bounce-back win following a disappointing road showing against SFA on Saturday. The Owls fell behind early against Texas Southern 6-2 but quickly composed themselves and fired back, tying the game a few minutes into the first quarter before amping up the intensity even further.

A 14-0 Rice run put the home team in front by double-digits. Texas Southern cut their deficit down to four in the second frame, but Destiny Jackson wasn’t going to allow it to slip any further. She scored 10 of the teams’ 12 points in the final five minutes of the half, propelling the Rice advantage back to 10 points at the half.

Texas Southern opened the third quarter with a free throw to get within nine, but that’s the closest the visitors would come for the remainder of the game. Dominque Ennis caught fire from long range and her teammates continued to get her open looks with the basketball.

Ennis’ career night helped spurt runs of 14-0, 9-0, 16-4 and 11-2. The lead ballooned past 20 midway through the third and Ennis and company just kept pouring it on. Back-to-back threes from Maya Bokunewicz put the Owls ahead by 30, ensuring a comfortable home win, the 700th victory in program history.

“It’s about us. This is an ‘us’ game. We wanted to be playing the best basketball we could be playing today,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said. “It wasn’t about what Texas Southern was doing or what the score was on the scoreboard.”

Final Box | Rice 74 – Texas Southern 44

What They’re Saying

“If feels good to get back in the win column. It feels good to be back at home. I thought we came out with a lot of energy and we saw a lot of energy for the majority of the game. And that’s the team that I know that we can be. That’s the team that we’re working to be every night. When we can play fast and when we can share the basketball the way we did, I think we have a really, really, really good team.” – Head coach Lindsay Edmonds

Key takeaway | Have a day, Dom

On a night without Malia Fisher, Rice women’s basketball was going to need someone else to step up. In some ways the phrase, “step up”, is an overused sports colloquialism, a trope coaches, broadcasters and writers alike lean on to suggest the necessity for a collective effort in the face of adversity.

Seldom does the conveyor really believe that one person will truly rise up and take the burden upon themselves. But that’s exactly what Ennis did on Wednesday night.

Ennis scored a career-high 25 points, connecting on a career-best six three-pointers. Tack on five assists, five boards and four steals and you have one of the most impressive stretches of basketball anyone in this program has produced so far this season.

“I think Dom’s capable of that every night,” Edmonds said. “I feel like Dom’s had a great summer. I feel like her overall confidence in the game has grown so much since last season and so it was kind of like, waiting for it. I think she’s had very solid games this season but this was definitely the breakout game of the season and what our expectations are of what she’s capable of. Very proud of her.”

Up Next: at Texas A&M Corpus Christi (Sat. Dec 2)

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Rice Basketball falls to UCI in finale, goes winless in Vegas

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Rice basketball hung around through halftime, but could not last a full 40 minutes, falling to UC Irvine in their Ball Dawgs Classic finale.

For the first time this week, Rice basketball opened a game by hitting their shots. After being ice cold from the field for the first two games of the Ball Dawgs Classic, Rice came out shooting 52 percent from the field in the first half with five assists and 31 points. They outshot their opponents by 10 percentage points and went into the halftime locker room tied. That, in itself, felt like a significant step.

The challenge in the second half would be to turn 20 sold minutes of basketball into a full game. Things started off well enough, with Rice opening up a three-point lead before playing UCI within three points for the next 10 minutes of action.

Travis Evee and Anthony Selden got to the line and made their free throws. They protected the basketball as a team, turning it over just twice in the second frame. What they couldn’t do was go shot for shot with a UC Irvine team that caught fire late.

At one point Rice missed seven in a row, allowing UCI to open a small lead. Then the Owls’ opponents knocked down eight of their final twelve shots. Rice finished 5-of-14 and that was that.

Final Box | UCI 83 – Rice 68

Key takeaway |  Be better on the boards

On an afternoon in which the Owls shot the ball well, protected the ball well and played servicable defense for long stretches, their inability to crash the boards cost them dearly. UCI led 20-14 in rebounds in the first half and finished the game with a 41-27 advantage over Rice. Nine of those were offensive rebounds.

It all comes down to giving opponents extra opportunities. Whether that’s turnovers, rebounds or something else, Rice isn’t playing cohesive enough as a team right now to overcome that margin. Small errors add up and they help turn a close game into another double-digit loss.

Up Next: vs UT Martin – Nov. 30 (Thr.)

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Rice Basketball downed by New Mexico, falls to 1-4

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Rice basketball fell to 0-2 at the Ball Dawgs Classic, falling too far behind in the first half to New Mexico on another tough night from three.

It wasn’t quite a repeat performance of the night before, but it was another discouraging result for Rice Basketball which fell to 1-4 on the season following a Wednesday night loss to New Mexico at the Ball Dawgs Classic in Las Vegas, NV. A changeup in the starting lineup, swapping in Noah Shelby in place of Anthony Selden didn’t seem to produce any material results.

Rice scored the first points, courtesy of a layup from Max Fiedler, but then watched their opponent go on a 16-3 run. New Mexico had their first double-digit lead before the second media timeout. Travie Evee kept the Owls afloat, leading all scorers with 11 first-half points.

After connecting on just 3-of-12 triples in the first half, Rice found some life early on in the second frame when their long balls began to fall. Rice made their first three three-pointers after intermission, cutting a deficit that had ballooned to 15 down to eight. The defense stepped up at that point too, contributing to nine consecutive missed shots for New Mexico.

As has been the case over the past four games, though, the bright spots were limited to brief moments and not stretched over the course of a 40-minute game. A 13-3 run midway through the second half put this game out of reach for good. Rice would go on to lose by a final score of 90-56.

Final Box | New Mexico 90 – Rice 56

Key takeaway | Can’t buy a bucket

Rice basketball likes to play fast and shoot the ball. When the shots go in, that’s all well and good. When they don’t, things can get out of hand quickly. And while the Owls possess the firepower to hurtle back and overcome deficits other teams might not, it’s certainly not a tactic they’d like to rely upon.

A season ago, Rice shot 44.9 percent from the floor and 36.4 percent from three. Those are averages, mind you, not highs and lows. Excluding their opener against Saint Thomas, Rice has yet to eclipse that shooting percentage from the field, managing just 34.0 percent from the floor against New Mexico. A dismal 25 percent shooting performance from three only made the troubles worse.

They’ve got one more game in Vegas to fight through. Then it’s back home against a couple of more manageable opponents and a much-needed, albeit brief reprieve from this rigorous non-conference schedule.

Up Next: Ball Dawg’s Classic – Henderson, NV (UC Irvine – Nov. 24)

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Rice Basketball blown away by Indiana State

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Rice basketball opened the Ball Dawgs Classic with a loss to Indiana State, losing the turnover battle and allowing too many long range shots.

Nothing seemed amiss in the early goings of the opening game for Rice basketball at the Ball Dawgs Classic in Las Vegas, NV. Rice and Indiana State traded early shots and were neck and neck through the first half of the opening frame. With the Owls leading 19-18 and the clock ticking under 12, it felt like a competitive game was about to unfold. That would not be the case.

Rice would go on to make just two shots in the next seven minutes of court time. During that period, Indiana State rained down six threes. The Owls simply could not keep up and their woes were further magnified by a season-high 18 turnovers.

That run took a close game and teetered it toward blowout territory. By the time the halftime buzzer sounded, Rice trailed by 21. Travis Evee did his part, contributing a season-high 25 points, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the early hole. Rice cut the deficit to 13 in the final minute, but they never had a real chance to win this basketball game once they fell behind in the manner with which they did.

“We knew they were a really good team coming in. They are a good team,” head coach Scott Pera said. “They made 16 threes and you’re never going to lose when you do that.”

Final Box | Indiana State 103 – Rice 88

Key takeaway | Don’t Hand Away Your Margin

Rice basketball had committed 18 turnovers in their last two games combined and 23 total on the season. To turn the ball over 18 times was devastating for the Owls’ offensive flow and marked one of the sloppiest performances taking care of the basketball for this team in quite some time. They only had three games with more turnovers in all of last season.

Pera pointed directly toward that glaring deficiency when explaining the loss. “I think it was our inability to take care of the ball,” he said. “We gave them turnovers. We gave them some open looks. There was a lot of miscommunication on defense that gave them wide-open looks. And they didn’t miss them.”

Rice made 10 threes against Indiana State and shot the ball decently well. They scored 88 points. This was a game that might have been competitive if the Owls had done enough to keep the game within reach. This team can score, but that skill won’t pay dividends if the defense and ball handling aren’t strong enough to keep games within reach.

There’s only so much margin for error that can be accounted for in a basketball game. Rice handed away all that margin and then some. The best teams struggle to win when turning the ball over at the rate the Owls’ did on Tuesday. Rice has some work to do before they’re in that company.

Up Next: Ball Dawg’s Classic – Henderson, NV (New Mexico – Nov. 22)

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