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Rice Women’s Basketball: Early lead slips away as Owls fall to Marshall

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Once again, Rice women’s basketball came out strong but couldn’t stay in step through four quarters, falling to Marshall at home.

Rice women’s basketball couldn’t have asked for a much better start at home against Marshall. The Owls hit five of their first six shots to take an 11-0 lead over the visiting Thundering Herd. The offense would cool off, but not by much. Rice shot 60.9 percent in the first half, weathering Marshall runs with more buckets of their own.

Once Marshall regained their footing toward the end of the second quarter the two teams traded small leads throughout the next frame. Destiny Jackson and India Bellamy delivered crucial baskets in the third quarter to keep Rice in the mix heading into the fourth.

Last Time Out: Rice Women’s Basketball falls short at home vs WKU

The tight battle tilted away from Rice when the fourth quarter began. Marshall went on a 15-0 run to start the period. Rice made just one field goal in the 10-minute span, faltering down the stretch as the short bench and the second game in two days seemed to prove too much to overcome.

Player Spotlight |  Destiny Jackson

Jackson came up one rebound shy of what would have been her first career double-double. On a day when most Owls struggled from the field, Jackson connected on four of her five shots, adding two points from five free throws. She finished with a +9 plus/minus, the only player on the team to finish in the positive differential.

Stat Corner | Not locked in at the line

There are a myriad of external factors that have not fallen in the Owls’ favor this season. But the reality is those challenges — both expected and unforeseen — happen to some degree to every team in every season. That makes it all the more imperative for this team to control what they can control, and that starts with free throws.

Rice women’s basketball went 8-of-18 from the line against Marshall, leaving 10 points on the board. Five of those misses came in the second quarter when the Owls could have kept a double-digit lead but allowed the gap to close. Free throws won’t fix everything, but it’s a good place to start.

Final Box | Marshall 66 – Rice 53

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice women’s basketball goes back on the road after their brief two-game homestand. Next week they’ll play a set of games against Old Dominion and Charlotte.

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Rice Basketball: Dismal second-half dooms Owls at WKU

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Rice basketball played a great first half before all but disappearing after the break, falling to Western Kentucky on the road on Thursday night.

A tale of two halves might not even do true justice to just how disparate the two periods Rice basketball played against Western Kentucky on the road Thursday night. The Owls came out white-hot, converting on 51.5 percent of their shots from the field while draining seven threes. Then the bottom dropped out. Rice shot 29.6 percent in the second half and added just one triple to their eventual modest totals.

The Owls opponents actually shot worse from the floor in the second half than they had in the first. Where they found their edge was the charity stripe. Western Kentucky was 17-of-22 from the free throw line. Rice was 8-for-11. The Owls would go on to lose by nine.

Last Time Out : Rice Basketball pulls off thrilling upset of UAB at home

It’s not as if fouls determined this game, though. Rice basketball just wasn’t nearly as crisp after the halftime buzzer. Whether it was the right halftime adjustments made by Western Kentucky or a bad shooting slump for Rice — or both — the results were the same. A game that looked winnable at halftime slipped away.

The loss snuffs a short two-game winning streak that included perhaps the most impactful victory of head coach Scott Pera’s tenure at Rice, a home win over UAB. The Owls fall to 2-2 in Conference USA play.

Player Spotlight | Chris Mullins

Mullis has developed into a jack-of-all-trades for Rice basketball over the course of his career. Always known for his superb defensive ability, he added some well-timed buckets against the Hilltoppers. He tossed in a three-pointer to start off the second half on his way to a tie for the team-high in scoring with 13 points. He also added two rebounds and a steal.

Stat Corner | Don’t get dunked

Western Kentucky dunked seven times against Rice and scored 32 total points in the paint. 18 of those points came after halftime. They were a large part of what allowed Western Kentucky to run away with the game in the second half. The home team came out of the break on a 13-5 run. Six of those points came directly from dunks, the highest percentage shot you can take. Just three of them came from threes.

Three-pointers would help Western Kentucky maintain the lead down the stretch, but getting beat inside is what allowed the gap to manifest in the first place. The shots won’t fall every night. When they don’t, preventing easy buckets has to climb atop the priority list. Rice basketball didn’t do that very well on Thursday.

Final Box | WKU 80 – Rice 66

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball closes out their brief road trip on Saturday with a visit to Marshall. The Owls bested the Thundering Herd in the Conference USA Tournament the last time these two squads met. After that they’ll return home for games against Old Dominion and Charlotte.

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Rice Women’s Basketball: Owls fall to WKU at home

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Playing in their first home game in almost a month, Rice women’s basketball fell at Tudor Fieldhouse to Western Kentucky.

For the second time since mid-December, Rice women’s basketball took the court in a regulation game. The Owls played one game last weekend — and even that contest was delayed — by a snowstorm, rather than COVID-19, at least. Back on their home court, the Owls squared off with Western Kentucky, one of two teams in Conference USA still unbeaten in conference play.

Like they did against Middle Tennessee last Friday, Rice came out firing in the first quarter. Rice jumped out to an 8-2 lead, with all the Owls points coming from the arms of Haylee Swayzee. From then on, both teams seemed to settle in.

More: Rice Women’s Basketball midseason State of the Program

A 15-15 first quarter gridlock turned into a 21-21 tie midway through the second quarter then a 29-29 stalemate in the final 90 seconds before the halftime buzzer. Things would turn south for the Owls shortly thereafter.

WKU came out of the break firing, outscoring Rice 7-1 to start the third quarter as they opened up an 11 point lead. Rice struggled from the field and committed six turnovers in the first six minutes of the quarter. “I think we did some good things and made some great runs,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said in the aftermath, “but then we did some a couple of silly things, we’d shoot ourselves in the foot and negate the run we just went on.”

The Owls would draw close on a few occasions in the fourth quarter, but wouldn’t tie it up again. Western Kentucky ran away with things late, turning what was a relatively close game into a one-sided affair in the final minutes.

Player Spotlight | Haylee Swayzee

It’s hard to believe, but the calendar is turning to mid-January and Haylee Swayzee, a team captain and one of the core pieces of this young team, played in her fourth game on Thursday against Western Kentucky.

“It’s great having her leadership out there, her ability to pull the team in in the huddle and remind them what we’re trying to do. I’m grateful to have her back,” Edmonds said.

Swayzee started strong but wasn’t able to add much to her point total down the stretch as her shots missed the mark. Still, she managed to tie for the team-leading in scoring with 14 points, adding four rebounds and two steals.

Stat Corner | Not all threes are created equal

Western Kentucky dominated Rice women’s basketball in transition from start to finish. Not only was their spacing on point, but they found the right shots to take. Western Kentucky shot 9-of-26 (34.6 percent) from three, but not all of their threes looked the same.

On at least four occasions Westen Kentucky thundered down the court and found a three-point shooter unguarded by several paces who drained the wide-open shot. It’s a lot hard to make those kinds of shots with a hand in your face. In Edmonds’ own words, “Giving up wide open threes is not who we are or what we’re about.”

Final Box | WKU 78 – Rice 61

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice women’s basketball will have the quickest turnaround they’ve seen in some time ahead of them. The Owls are scheduled to be back on the court on Saturday against Marshall. They’ll hit the road next week for games against Old Dominion and Charlotte.

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Rice Basketball slingshots upward following wild week

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Knocking off UAB was a big win for the Rice basketball program, but the Owls hope this wild week won’t be the end of their upward ascent.

Rice basketball is riding the tail end of one of a rollercoaster week that’s led them through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. They crested the peak of that eight-day stretch when they knocked off conference favorite UAB at Tudor Fieldhouse. That spectacular win will be remembered for quite some time at South Main, but those forty minutes were on Saturday were only part of what made the victory so special.

Rice Athletics staff scoured the record books to find a recent comparable. The best they could find? UAB was No. 38 in NET rankings entering their game against the Owls. Rice beat New Mexico, No. 32 in RPI, on the road in December of 2015. The Lobos would fall off down the stretch and finish a dismal 17-15 on the year. The last time Rice beat a team that was great from wire to wire? It might date back to their WAC days.

Given that context, the win might be even grander than it was initially assumed to be. Few could have seen it coming, especially with it coming a week removed from a 32 point drubbing at the hands of a North Texas squad that UAB had just defeated two days prior.

That loss was one of the most painful in recent memory. Rice has lost by 30 or more points to a conference foe on just one other occasion in the past three seasons. Oddly enough, that other blowout defeat came at the hands of Louisiana Tech in late February. One week later they upset Marshall in the Conference USA Tournament, arguably the best win of head coach Scott Pera’s tenure at the time.

What’s it like, going from the valley to the mountain in such a short time? “I’m tired. I’m emotionally spent,” head coach Scott Pera said after the game, still grinning before making his way to the locker room to celebrate.

By that point in the Zoom interview session, he’d already gushed about the significance of the win. He’d talked about what it meant to the program, to his players, to his staff. Praise had been allotted to everyone to which it was due. Pera was smiling, but he carried the weight of a season ravaged by COVID-19, complications which Pera has frequently referred to as the most grueling conditions he’s ever had to coach through.

That’s part of what made this win special. To fight through COVID-19 delays and struggle to get their feet back under themselves against North Texas was daunting. “That wasn’t us.” Pera said, defiantly, “That’s not who we are.”

And what exactly is that? Who is this new-look Rice basketball team that can topple the best the conference has to offer? And more importantly, what’s next?

Mentally (and emotionally) Pera and his team have already moved on. A tenuous stretch of some of the conference’s top teams awaits the Owls next weekend when they play at Western Kentucky and Marshall. That’s exactly where Pera hopes to go next.

His aim? “To compete for the upper half of this league,” he said. “To put ourselves in position on Tuesday, Wednesday in the conference tournament, maybe we don’t have to play.”

Who would have thought we’d be entertaining the possibility of a bye before the Conference USA Tournament a week removed from one of the most discouraging losses Pera has seen in his tenure as the Rice basketball head coach? Pera didn’t seem phased by the quick transition. Neither did guard Travis Evee.

“We said the whole summer we’re going to take the next step,” Evee said. “And I think today was a great win for us, a great win for the program and just shows all the work we put in.”

Perhaps that monumental win could indeed be a building block for the future. We’ll find out soon enough. Rice visits Western Kentucky on Thursday.

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“I don’t remember one bigger than this”: Rice basketball upsets UAB

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Rice basketball upset conference favorite UAB at home on Saturday, earning the marquee win of head coach Scott Pera’s tenure to date.

Ranked No. 38 in the NET rankings and No. 48 in KenPom, UAB entered Tudor Fieldhouse on Saturday as the overwhelming favorites in Conference USA. They left with a loss at the hands of a now surging Rice basketball squad that has won two in a row at home.

When asked where the win ranked among the top moments of his tenure, Rice basketball head coach Scott Pera formed his hand into a thumbs up and raised it higher and higher until it left the screen of the Zoom call and continued to climb. “The Marshall win last year was tremendous. We’ve had some other big ones here too,” he said with a grin,” but I don’t remember one bigger than this.”

Wins like that don’t come easy. UAB led Rice by five points at halftime. The Blazers were shooting a staggering 60 percent from the field at that point and had seemed very much like the same team that had knocked Rice out of the conference tournament last March.

Pera and his team persevered. The fifth-year headman gave a nod to his assistant coaches that helped develop the game plan and reinforced to his team it would work.

“They never wavered in their belief that they can win the game. And that’s where it started,” he said. “If you don’t believe, you have no chance. And we believed.”

More: Rice Basketball grinds out win over Middle Tennessee

The Owls’ belief was tested early in the second half. UAB opened up a 10 point lead, but just when it seemed like the Blazers might pull away, the Owls’ shots started to fall. Travis Evee scored 17 of his 25 points in the second half. Carl Pierre contributed 13 of his 19 points after the break. Likewise, Mylyjael Poteat scored 14 of his 18 in the final 20 minutes.

Rice basketball also doubled down on their early control of the glass. They whipped the Blazers on the boards, outrebounding their foes 38-27. The 10 point lead by the visitors slowly dwindled. Pierre connected on a triple with 4:33 to put Rice in front for good before Evee iced the game with eight free throws in the final minute.

Player Spotlight | Mylyjael Poteat

Poteat battled injuries last season but was able to play a modest role down the stretch. He’s continued to grow this year, flashing here and there, but never truly becoming a consistent fixture on the floor, at least not until Saturday.

“Tonight, he was the difference. There’s no question about it. He was tremendous,” coach Pera said following the win. He praised Poteat’s renewed work ethic and credited his willingness to put in the extra work that paid off for Rice in this game. Poteat’s 18 points were a career-high. He also added seven rebounds.

Stat Corner | Win inside

The usual three-point-happy Owls were more balanced against the Blazers, repeating echoing traces of an inside-first mentality that helped propel them to a win over MTSU two days prior. UAB outscored Rice in the pain 42-34, but the 34 point total is night and day different from the 18 points in the paint they scored against Middle Tennessee or the 16 they mustered against North Texas.

Rice basketball made eight threes against UAB, tying the second-lowest total they’d had in a winning performance this year. Two games aren’t quite enough for a trend, but it’s a notable growth moment for a team that has lived and died by the three for so long.

Rice out physical-ed UAB in this game. They won on the boards. They found success in the paint. And most importantly. they played sound defense in key moments and hit their free throws. In every way, this looked like a complete basketball team on Saturday.

Final Box | Rice 85 – UAB 80

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball will get a few extra days to enjoy this win. Their next tip doesn’t come until Thursday night when they kick off road trip against Western Kentucky before heading to Marshall on Saturday.

Photo credit Maria Lysaker
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