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Rice Basketball earns season sweep of WKU with home win

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For the first time under head coach Scott Pera, Rice basketball has swept Western Kentucky. The Owls knocked off the Hilltoppers again Saturday, moving to 2-0 this season.

Following an extended stretch of slow starts, Rice basketball came out red-hot against the red-clad Western Kentucky Hilltoppers on Saturday night at Tudor Fieldhouse. Quincy Olivari conducted the early onslaught, scoring 20 points in the first half alone on his way to a monster 34-point game, a career-high, along with 12 rebounds, tying a career-best.

With Olivari firing on all cylinders, the Owls were able to hold off every Hilltopper advance. Western Kentucky mounted an 11-0 run late in the first half and an 8-0 run in the opening minutes of the second half. Still, Rice kept and maintained the lead. Every time Western Kentucky got back inside of double-digits, Rice had an answer.

The game wouldn’t really get close until the final 30 seconds when Western Kentucky knocked down three long-range threes in separation mode. It still wouldn’t be enough, however, as Max Fiedler, Cameron Sheffield and Mekhi Mason knocked down enough free throws to secure the win.

The win was significant for Rice basketball for several reasons. First, it secures a winning record, Pera’s second at Rice. Second, it’s already the highest single-season win total of Pera’s tenure with four regular season games still to play. Finally, it clinches a season sweep of Western Kentucky, a first for Pera at Rice.

“It shows where we’ve come and kind of where we are,” Pera said. “It’s not about this huge peak and then Rice crashes again. No, we keep getting better, and better. And slow goes the role, I guess, there’s been no huge jumps. But it keeps improving and that is the goal.”

Final Box | Rice 83 – WKU 78

Key takeaway | Fast starts make all the difference

Against Western Kentucky, Rice baseball was the aggressor. They came out early, dictated how the game was going to be played and made Western Kentucky play catch up. Before the game, Pera stressed exactly that to his team. The Owls led at halftime in three of 15 league games and had a -90 point differential.

“I changed everything up, Pera said, “Shoot around, pregame warmup. And they responded, to their credit, with just a lot of energy and togetherness and you could see it. It was 10-0 out of the game and we’ve had a lot of 10-0’s on the other side.”

With an early lead, Rice basketball had breathing room. The pressure to make every shot didn’t seem to be there and the Owls were able to push Western Kentucky inside and limit the three ball. If the Hilltoppers were going to come back, it was going to require a steam stream of two which they ultimately could not deliver. For Rice, this is the formula for winning basketball.

Up Next: at UAB – Thursday, Feb. 22 at 6:30 p.m.

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Rice Women’s Basketball bounces back emphatically with win over WKU

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Rice women’s basketball recovered quickly from a Thursday night loss, racing past Western Kentucky to close out their road trip with a win.

More than once in the early goings of Saturday’s game against Western Kentucky, it felt like Rice women’s basketball was about to break away. The Owls amassed an early 19-point lead in the first quarter, but weren’t able to stretch their advantage beyond that and allowed the Hilltoppers to recover. That advantage became 11 in the second quarter, but the home team responded with a 10-0 run of their own to bring the game back within one.

Finally, in the third quarter, the dam broke. Western Kentucky was 1-of-14 from the field in the third quarter meanwhile Rice exploded with a 22-2 run to essentially put the game out of reach. Western Kentucky would get back within 17 at the end of the quarter and get as close as 12 in the fourth frame, but there was never any real threat as Rice held the line and walked out of Bowling Green with an important win.

Final Box | Rice 82 – WKU 64

Key takeaway | Have a ball, Bellamy

Rice women’s basketball hasn’t played a game at full strength since the first weekend of February. For two straight weekends, the Owls have been without the services of either Ashlee Austin or Malia Fisher, arguably their most differential players on the roster. They’re 3-1 in that span, thanks in large part to the efforts of India Bellamy.

In her first 16 games of the season, Bellamy averaged 8.2 points, 3.8 rebounds, 0.9 steals and 0.6 blocks per game, more than serviceable off the bench. But over the last four games, those averages have skyrocketed. Since February 9, Bellamay has been averaging 18.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.3 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. She’s nearly doubled her averages across the board.

There’s no word yet on how long the team will be without Fisher on the court, but regardless of how long Fisher is out, Rice is going to need this version of Bellamy to get to where they want to be. They got it on Saturday with a career-best 27-point game against WKU.

Up Next: vs UAB – Thursday, Feb. 23 at 7:00 p.m.

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Rice Basketball rally falls short, drops game to underdog UTSA

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Rice basketball picked a bad day to have a bad day, falling to the last team in the conference standings in front of the Owls’ home crowd on Thursday night.

UTSA has clung to the bottom of the Conference USA standings for the entirety of the season, but they’ve managed to give Rice basketball fits when the two have met on the court. Thursday night in Houston proved no expectation. UTSA shot 50 percent from the floor in the first half to a meager 27 percent for the Owls, who went into the break trailing by four to a team with one conference win.

The shooting slump lingered through the early portions of the second half. Rice was able to climb back within one point in the first five minutes but a later 10-2 UTSA run would put the road team up by 13 points with the clock ticking under 10 minutes to go. In need of a spark, Alem Huseinovic and Quincy Olivari strung together some three-pointers, bringing the game back within range in the final minutes.

That late run proved to be false hope. UTSA responded with a 10-2 run of their own, pushing the lead back to double digits and holding on for the upset. As hard as they tried, Rice just couldn’t break through.

Final Box | UTSA 84 – Rice 79

Key takeaway | Bad day to have a bad day

UTSA entered Thursday’s contest on an 11-game losing streak, the longest in school history. With postseason seeding on the line against a struggling squad, the worst team in Conference USA, Rice basketball couldn’t afford to come out flat. Yet that’s exactly what happened. The Owls were able to keep things close for a while, but once UTSA got hot late, the ruse was up.

This was supposed to be the easy game. Head coach Scott Pera was quick to acknowledge the Roadrunners. He said all the right things. But if Rice basketball really wanted to contend for a first round bye in the Conference USA Tournament, this seemed like a much more winnable game on paper.

“We gotta play better. We have to be better defensively. We have to be more ready to play in a better mind space. We can’t worry about all the other stuff,” Pera said, alluding to the standings. “You just got to play better to give ourselves a chance to win. If we don’t play. we’re not going to win and none of that will matter.”

Games aren’t played on paper. Rice basketball is acutely aware of that right now.

Up Next: vs WKU – Saturday, Feb. 18 at 7:00 p.m.

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Rice Women’s Basketball handed tough loss against UTSA

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Rice women’s basketball wasn’t ready to go away from home, falling to UTSA in one of their final road games of the regular season.

It would have been hard to draw up a more crushing start for Rice women’s basketball than the first half they played against UTSA on Thursday night. The Owls fell behind 18-1, then 29-9, shooting worse than 10 percent from the floor through much of the first quarter and only truly finding their stroke midway through the second stanza.

A 10-2 Rice run to end the half averted total disaster and gave the Owls a chance to regroup and try again. UTSA would keep things within that range for most of the third quarter before Rice gave one final push in the fourth and final frame.

Rice would get within five on a jumper from Destiny Jackson, but that was the point when they ran out of game. The Owls made two shots from the field in the final seven minutes, falling to UTSA by a final score of 66 to 53.

Final Box | UTSA 66 – Rice 53

Key takeaway | Austin essential in reemergence

Prior to Thursday night, Ashlee Austin hadn’t played in a basketball game since February 4. She’d been relegated to watching the past two contests by a coach’s decision. Rice won both games without her on the court, but it seemed improbable the Owls would rattle off an extended winning streak without the help of their leading scorer.

Austin came off the bench and led all Rice players in scoring with 14 points. She led all Rice players in rebounds with five and assists with three. Malia Fisher, a rock for this team since her arrival on campus, was limited to just five minutes. Someone else needed to step up. Austin did. It wasn’t enough tonight, but they’re going to need her down the stretch.

Up Next: at WKU – Saturday, Feb. 18 at 1:00 p.m.

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Rice Basketball hangs on late to beat FIU

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Rice basketball hung around against FIU through the first half but caught fire late to claim an important road victory.

For nearly 30 minutes of action, there was hardly any separation on the court between Rice basketball and their Saturday night host, FIU. Even after Rice opened the game on an 8-0 run, FIU quickly gained its footing and brought the game back near level. From that point, the Owls and Panthers were locked in a close game, waiting for someone on either side to pull their team away.

The first crack appeared when Quincy Olivari and Cameron Sheffield made three-pointers on consecutive trips down the court to push the Rice lead to eight points. From there, Rice would slowly pull away, stretching their lead to double-digits. FIU would get back within one score late, but Rice made their free throws and got a clutch steal from Sheffield to seal the game.

Rice knocked down 14 threes in drove on their way to the big road win, but they also took advantage of a notable edge on the boards, outrebounding FIU 37-26 with 11 offensive rebounds in the process.

Final Box | Rice 85 – FIU 78

Key takeaway |  Gritting out a road win

Rice basketball has six games left in the regular season. Four of those are scheduled to be played at Tudor Fieldhouse. Playing at home doesn’t lessen the strength of a tough opponent, but it undeniably matters in college basketball. The Owls are 10-4 at home this season and 6-5 on the road. It’s also significant considering where Rice is in the standings.

By virtue of their victory over FIU, Rice is fifth in Conference USA. That’s right on the line where the Owls need to be if they’re going to secure a bye in the first round of the conference tournament. Holding steady right where they are right now might be good enough, even if they don’t get any herculean efforts down the stretch.

Rice is a half-game behind Middle Tennesee, who currently sits one spot ahead of Rice in the standings. The Blue Raiders hold the tiebreaker, but a strong push down the stretch might still hold some upward mobility for the Owls. Regardless of what happens in the next three weeks, beating FIU on Saturday enables these hypotheticals to continue.

Up Next: vs UTSA – Thursday, Feb. 16 at 7:00 p.m.

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