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Rice Basketball: Owls must adjust with Guard Quincy Olivari out for the year

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With guard Quincy Olivari out for the year, Rice basketball must adjust, and it might be a bumpy process as they iron out the kinks.

A season filled with highs and lows for Rice basketball has continued along its bumpy path, finding its latest jarring cobblestone on Saturday at home against North Texas. The Owls fell to the Mean Green 67-44, their second 20+ point drubbing by the conference leaders in the span of a month and a half.

The last time these two teams met in Denton, Rice has just come off a three-week-long hiatus and was overcoming COVID-19 which had made its way through almost the entirety of the roster. “I don’t even count that game,” head coach Scott Pera said of that prior defeat, able to take solace in knowing his team would respond by winning four of their next five games.

This time, the future is less certain, in large part because of a new curveball. Guard Quincy Olivari broke his wrist late in the second half against UTEP as he was fouled going to the basket. Coach Pera confirmed Olivari would miss the remainder of the season.

“Not only does nobody feel sorry for us that Quincy is out,” Pera said, with a frank honesty that was as transparent as it was direct. “People are happy that Quincy is out because now they have a better chance of beating us.”

While Olivari was limited with a wrist injury in the fall, Rice lost four of seven games in a two-week span. They hadn’t lost that many games over any seven-game stretch since, at least that was the case until this loss to North Texas, the fourth defeat in the Owls’ last seven outings.

Rice basketball now sits at 6-6 in conference play with a hole to fix on their roster. They experimented with playing both bigs Myljyael Poteat and Max Fiedler at the same time on Saturday, a strategy they hadn’t utilized up to this point. More experiments are likely to come. Pera summed it up quite well: “We just have to find a way.”

Photo credit Maria Lysaker
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Conference USA Basketball 2022: Early February Roundup

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Conference USA Basketball is one month away from March and the conference tournament. Here’s where each team stands.

Team NET  KenPom Record
Charlotte 182 211 12-9 (5-4)
FAU 122 124 14-9 (7-3)
FIU 242 238 13-10 (3-7)
LA Tech 97 95 17-6 (8-3)
Marshall 249 243 8-15 (1-9)
MTSU 115 120 14-7 (5-3)
North Texas 51 61 16-4 (9-1)
Old Dominion 217 213 9-13 (4-5)
Rice 180 191 13-6 (6-5)
Southern Miss 331 334 6-16 (1-8)
UAB 39 38 18-5 (8-2)
UTEP 159 172 14-8 (7-3)
UTSA 338 329 8-16 (1-10)
WKU 127 110 12-11 (4-6)
Kenpom, NET, and standings reflect games as of 2/5/2022

Key Storylines

Anybody’s… conference

The East was always somewhat of a mixed bag, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past where it seemed like a foregone conclusion one of UAB or Louisiana Tech would win the West. Meanwhile WKU, an early favorite to win the East, is nowhere near the top of the standings on their side of the conference. No matter what happens down the stretch, every game will be meaningful.

Owls’ right the ship

FAU hit a rough patch at the beginning of the year, losing three of four games, a streak that began with a road loss to High Point. Since then the Owls have been on a roll. They’ve won six of seven and have surged back to the top of the East standings. There’s still a month to go, so they’re not out of the woods just yet, but to be back in the picture is a restatement to this team’s tremendous perseverance.

The leftovers

The gap separating those within striking distance of a conference tournament bye and the middle of the pack can is minuscule. A string of good (or bad) games can and probably will probably cause quite the tumult in the standings.

That won’t be the case at the bottom. Marshall, Southern Miss and UTSA all leave the first full weekend of February more than four games removed from first place and have yet to win double-digit games. We might not know who will finish first and second, but we can probably start to ink in the bottom three.

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Rice Women’s Basketball: Owls grind out narrow win at UTEP

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Locked in a close game with UTEP from wire to wire, Rice women’s basketball made the shots when it mattered to secure the road win.

It might be worth finding someone to whisper “it’s the first quarter” into the ear of every Rice women’s basketball player before they take the court. The Owls continue to be one of the fastest-starting teams in Conference USA as their trend of early scoring continued on Saturday against UTEP.

Rice jumped out to a 9-3 lead to start the contest, pushing their advantage to seven points late in the first quarter before UTEP was able to find any sort of rhythm. The Miners would narrow the deficit in the second quarter and tie the game up before a Destiny Jackson jumper at the buzzer put Rice back in front, 32-30.

Last Time Out: Rice Women’s Basketball can’t keep up with sharpshooting USM

The third and fourth quarters would be more of the same. Despite Rice outshooting UTEP 49.0 percent from the field compared to UTEP’s 39.3 percent, neither team led by more than three points in the second half until Haylee Swayze hit a three with 5:51 to play. From that point onward Rice simply had to weather the storm.

Turnovers by both teams made the finish tighter than the Owls would have hoped for, but Destiny Jackson delivered five free throws in the final 90 seconds to secure the win. After starting 0-5 in conference play, Rice women’s basketball has now won two of their last three.

Player Spotlight | Malia Fisher

Extended playing time for some of the Owls’ up-and-coming players was one of the subtle blessings of a short bench this season. Malia Fisher showcased the benefits of having her on the court quickly, notching double-doubles in three of her first six career games.

On Saturday against UTEP, it seemed as Fisher couldn’t miss. She connected on her first six shots from the field, ending the game 7-for-14 with seven rebounds, fives assist and two steals. The Owls’ streaky offense was sparked time and time again by a big play from Fisher.

Stat Corner | Five deep

Rice women’s basketball has relied heavily on their staters all season long. With little reinforcements behind them, the Owls’ starting five are going to have to carry the load. That’s exactly what they did on Saturday. Rice got two points from their bench, courtesy of India Bellamy’s lone shot attempt, splitting the remaining 70 points across their five starters. UTEP would only score 69 points with their starters and bench combined.

Four of the Owls’ five starters reached double-digits with Haylee Swayze coming up just short (eight points) but delivering the crucial three-pointer in the fourth quarter that all but put the game out of reach. It was a stellar performance from the starters. Rice will need more of that going forward.

Final Box | Rice 72 – UTEP 69

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice women’s basketball gets a home-and-away two-game slate with North Texas next weekend. The Owls will travel to Denton on Thursday, Feb. 10 and host the Mean Green on Sunday. Feb. 13.

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Rice Basketball: Owls’ rally falls short against UTEP

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Rice Basketball fell behind quickly but battled back to turn a lopsided affair into a one-possession game before narrowly falling to UTEP at home.

From the moment UTEP’s Jamal Bieniemy drained a three-pointer to open the scoring, Rice basketball was in catch-up mode at home. The Owls would take a brief 4-3 only to watch it evaporate with a 17-2 run by the Miners. That effectively set the script for the afternoon. If Rice wanted to notch their third consecutive conference victory they would have to claw their way back.

No sooner than Rice had seen their deficit reach double digits, the rally began. Rice answered. Trailing 20-9, Rice tightened up on defense and answered UTEP’s big run with a 14-2 run of their own. All of a sudden, the game was on. It wasn’t until Quincy Olivari’s final shot of the first half, a deep three, that Rice would once again take the lead, entering halftime up 30-28 at Tudor Fieldhouse.

Last Time Out: Rice Basketball closes strong, tops UTSA at home

The two squads traded shots and scores throughout the early portions of the second half. Neither side was able to take a meaningful lead until Quincy Olivari left the game following a hard foul as he went towards the basket. While Olivari was being attended to in the locker room, UTEP started a run courtesy of four triples from Bieniemy in the final 11 minutes of regulation, propelling him to a career-high in scoring.

Rice was able to trim an 11-point deficit down two, but ran out of time as the clock struck zero on a buzzer-beating layup from Carl Pierre. With the loss, Rice basketball falls to 13-9 on the season and 6-5 in conference play.

Player Spotlight | Max Fiedler

It has been an extremely quiet winter for center Max Fiedler. Once a fixture on the floor, improved play from Mylyjael Poteat had dropped Fiedler’s minutes from the mid 30’s to the low 20’s. His scoring fell off too. Fiedler hit double-digits in the scoring column just once between the Owls’ Dec. 11 tilt against Houston Baptist and a 14-point outing against Louisiana Tech on Jan. 27.

Fiedler appears to have gotten back into the groove ever since. He had 22 points at home against UTSA on Thursday before scoring 12 points on Saturday against UTEP. He also had eight rebounds. Rice basketball is better when Fiedler is on his game. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come.

Stat Corner | 14

Maturity is hard to quantify in a box score, but it can be seen when you look a bit closer than the standard points, rebounds and assists. Rice basketball trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half. And then they didn’t. The growth and poise exhibited by this team cannot simply be boiled down to 14 points, but that margin (and the vigor with which the Owls erased it) does speak volumes about this team.

In previous seasons, a 10-point deficit felt overwhelming. Now Rice can weather the storm, keep shooting and play staunch enough defense to pull themselves back in just about any contest. Bieniemy’s three-point onslaught proved too much to overcome in the final minutes, but the Owls were in this game. There are no moral victories. A loss is a loss. But Rice didn’t lose this because they were outmatched. This team can hang with anyone.

Final Box | UTEP 72 – Rice 70

Up Next | Full Schedule

Originally scheduled to play North American next week, Rice basketball will instead host Jarvis Christian on Tuesday, Feb. 8. They’ll finish their four-game homestand the following Saturday, Feb. 12 against North Texas.

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Rice Basketball closes out to win over UTSA at home

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Although the weather was cold, Rice basketball stayed hot, downing UTSA at Tudor Fieldhouse to improve to 6-4 in C-USA play.

Almost from wire to wire, Rice basketball was the better team when they took the court on Thursday night at Tudor Fieldhouse to play UTSA. After opening the season with a brutal stretch that featured some of the league’s best teams, Rice has played back-to-back games against Southern Miss and UTSA — teams that currently sit at the bottom of the standings — and the Owls were able to pull away to secure wins against each.

The Thursday tilt with UTSA started innocently enough. The teams traded baskets early with UTSA leading 8-6 after four minutes were in the books. Then Rice began to heat up. The Owls went on a dominant 19-7 run, doing the fast majority of their damage inside. Max Fiedler needed less than 12 minutes of game time to reach double-digit points.

Last Time Out: Rice Basketball surges past Southern Miss

UTSA would go on a run of their own in the closing minutes of the first half to cut what had been a 17-point Rice lead down to four at the break. Rather than get rattled, Rice took the interlude to take a deep breath and came out ready in the second half.

No matter how hard UTSA pushed, Rice had an answer. The Roadrunners tied the game up with back-to-back baskets right out of the game before Rice answered with an 11-2 run to widen the gap once more. Neither team would score more than two consecutive shots before the other snuck in, that was until Rice hit three in a row to take a 70-61 with under eight minutes to play.

Rice would hold on down the stretch, adjusting well to whatever the UTSA defense threw at them late in the game, finding good shots and ruining any hopes the Roadrunners had for a late rally.

Player Spotlight | Travis Evee

On a night where the Owls’ opponents made some runs, Rice needed just about everyone to step up. Carl Pierre and Fiedler paved the way early, but it was Evee’s consistent shooting stroke that kept the team moving.

Evee connected on seven of his 11 shots from the field, scoring 16 points. He had five assists and four rebounds while only turning the ball over once. He was as constant as anyone on the team and his back-to-back triples to start the second half were absolutely crucial.

Stat Corner | Take it to the basket

Rice basketball will always be known for their propensity to shoot from far away, but they put on a clinic on how to get to the hoop on Thursday against UTSA. The Owls attempted just six three-pointers, making two, on their way to a massive first-half lead. They scored 28 of their first 44 points in the paint, finishing with 46 points in the paint. They outscored UTSA 18 to 2 on fastbreak points.

It’s more than evident this team has evolved and grown on offense. They’re a balanced scoring team that continues to develop their defensive chops as the season progresses.

Final Box | Rice 91 – UTSA 78

Up Next | Full Schedule

The second of a four-game homestand will take place on Saturday when Rice basketball hosts UTEP at Tudor Fieldhouse. From there the Owls will play North American on Tuesday, Feb. 8 and North Texas on Saturday, Feb. 12.

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