The source for Rice sports news

Rice Women’s Basketball: Lauren Schwartz shines in debut season

By

Lauren Schwartz left her mark during her freshman season with Rice Women’s Basketball. Her career at South Main is only getting started.

The departure of senior Nicole Iademarco following the 2018-2019 season left an opening in the Rice Women’s Basketball starting lineup. The Owls were returning several role players who would be candidates to fill the final spot, but head coach Tina Langely opted for a new face over a familiar one.

Lauren Schwartz, a freshman from Union, Kentucky started the Owls’ opening game against Nicholls St. She earned a second start that same week against Arkansas-Little Rock. From that point onward, the job was hers. She became one of three players on the roster to start every game for Rice this past season.

Langley noticed Schwartz had the potential to be special from the start. “She has the little characteristics that can help someone be great,” she said. “The grit that you need and just the relentlessness that she shows on the court.”

Schwartz was third on the team in scoring (9.6 points per game) and third in rebounds (116). Eventual WNBA Draft selection Erica Ogwumike and center Nancy Mulkey were the only players who topped Schwartz in either statistic. For a freshman playing among some of the best to ever wear Rice uniforms, the game never looked too big.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

There was a learning curve as she adjusted to the college game, but she navigated those challenges well. She became more consistent as the year progress. Schwartz finished with double-digit points in six of her final seven games after tallying nine double-digit outings in her first 22 games. Even on nights when she struggled to find her shot, she found ways to make an impact.

“She’s driven in a way that you don’t teach, she has that internally,” Langely declared. “I think that’s going to help her continue to grow at a really fast rate and have a lot of success.”

Translation: For Lauren Schwartz, the best is yet to come.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Rice Women’s Basketball: ’19-’20 season a reminder there are no sure things

By

Rice women’s basketball head coach Tina Langley has come to terms with the team’s truncated season. For here, there’s more to success than wins alone.

Fans were disappointed when the final buzzer sounded in Reed Arena and Rice women’s basketball was eliminated from the 2019 NCAA Tournament. Erica Ogwumike, Nancy Mulkey and a core group of young players had fallen just short of upsetting Marquette in College Station.

The Owls had come close to keeping their tremendous season alive, but all was not lost. Rice would return almost the entire unit next year. Surely, Rice would get another chance at an NCAA Tournament win. It just wouldn’t come as soon as many had hoped.

Months later, Ogwumike and Co. walked onto the court in Frisco, TX to play their first game of the Conference USA Tournament. The Owls were favorites to win the game and the tournament. That would secure another trip to the Big Dance. But minutes before tip the game was called off and the tournament was canceled. With 48 hours the NCAA Tournament had been canceled too and any that second chance at an NCAA win with this group went up in smoke.

In the weeks and months that followed the NCAA would opt not to grant additional eligibility to basketball students who’s seasoned’ were shortened. Ogwumike would hear her name called in the WNBA draft. Life would move on.

In the aftermath, Rice women’s basketball head coach Tina Langley found comfort in another kind of success, one that she said carries just as much weight as championships.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

“We’ve never been a program that really evaluated ourselves based on winning and losing or whether we won a championship or not. It’s just did we become the best team that we could possibly become?” she asked before going on to answer her own question. “I’m just really proud of who we became.”

And perhaps that is the best way to evaluate a season without a true ending. Rice started slow, and saw a 30-game conference winning streak snapped midseason. They rebounded, winning their final five games. Although they didn’t know it at the time, the season would end with a home win over Old Dominion. That victory — weeks after the Monarchs had snapped the Owls streal — solidified the Owls as back-to-back outright champions. Like every coach hopes, they were playing their best basketball at the end of the season.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Rice Athletics: Owls have no plans to cut sports

By

Athletic departments across the country are trimming back. Rice Athletics has no plans to cut sports and will keep its 14 teams intact.

Rice Athletics does not intend to cut any of its sponsored athletic teams. In fact, dropping a sport was never on the table at Rice. “It’s just not been part of our calculus at all,” Athletic Director Joe Karlgaard said.

The rationale for the ease of that decision hinges on how college athletics are currently structured. Rice fields 14 varsity sports, the minimum required by the NCAA to retain D1 status.

Dropping a sport to save money in the current environment would require Rice to get a waiver, which likely would be temporary. The ramifications of that decision are currently on display at Central Michigan.

CMU went below the required six men’s sports when it opted to drop the it’s men’s track and field this spring. To prevent the loss of their D1 status, they applied for a waiver which was granted in early June. Athletic Director Michael Alford noted that the waiver applied to the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years. If Central Michigan intends to maintain it’s D1 status beyond that, they’ll have to add another men’s sport or get another waiver.

Rice wasn’t interested in playing that game. Given the infrastructure and athletes already in place on campus, cutting back on a program for such a brief period of time might create more problems than it solves. Central Michigan may very well decide to reinstate its men’s track program in two years.

That said, the cancelation of the NCAA Tournament put universities across the nation in a tough spot. Many depend on revenue distributions from that marquee spring event. Losing that check put budgets everywhere under the microscope.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

That might have been enough to spur change on its own, but the dark cloud of the COVID-19 pandemic continued to loom over the upcoming academic calendar. It quickly became clear that more changes were on the way.

Here’s a brief list of D1 programs that have been eliminated during the past four months:

  • Old Dominion: Wrestling
  • Central Michigan: Men’s track and field
  • Cincinnati: Men’s soccer
  • FIU: Men’s track and field (reported, not announced yet by school)
  • Akron: Men’s cross country, men’s golf and women’s tennis
  • Furman: Baseball and men’s lacrosse
  • Wisconsin Green-Bay: Men’s and women’s tennis
  • East Carolina: Men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s swimming and diving
  • App State: Men’s soccer, men’s tennis and men’s track and field
  • Wright State: Softball, men’s and women’s tennis
Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Rice Football: Owls cautious with return to campus plans

By

Rice football decision-makers are currently evaluating a plan to return to campus. When that will be and what it will look like remain to be seen.

The future of college football is as uncertain now as its ever been, but a light has seemingly appeared on the horizon. The NCAA opened the door for college athletes to return to campus in June. That decision came after nearly a 3-month hiatus from all university athletic facilities. What that looks like, and when it will occur, vary from conference to conference and school to school.

The SEC opted for a uniform decision. League presidents voted to allow athletes to return to campus starting June 8 for voluntary workouts. Conference USA has left it up to each member institution. The Houston Cougars open their facilities across town for their student-athletes on June 1.

The ramifications of decisions of this kind rose to the forefront quickly. Three Marshall players tested positive for COVID-19 upon their return to campus. Outside of Conference USA, five Alabama players tested positive for the virus after interacting with roughly 50 players who had also returned to campus.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

On May 29, Rice Athletic Director Joe Karlgaard issued an update on the Owls’ decision-making process in that area:

Speaking of return to campus, the NCAA has approved student-athletes to return to their respective campuses on a voluntary basis beginning June 1. We have not yet set a date for our own return to campus and will work with Rice leadership to ensure we can bring back our staff and student-athletes as safely as possible. We remain on track to begin our fall sports seasons on time, but with a rapidly changing and fluid situation, we are also prepared to make calendar adjustments as necessary.

The Owls are going to be cautious about this. The positive test results from other schools add to the reason for concern.

“We have to make the best decisions that we can when we’re required to make them with the information we have on hand knowing that information could change tomorrow,” Karlgaard said following the release. He added that he feels “really good about where we are and our approach.”

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts

Conference USA to trim schedules for basketball and Olympic sports

By

Conference USA will shorten regular season play and alter the postseason structure for several sports, beginning this fall.

The financial ramifications of the COVID-19 shutdown made it clear changes were coming to Conference USA schedules and those modifications are beginning to take shape. This week Stadium’s Brett McMurphy reported the men’s and women’s basketball tournament would be reduced from 12 teams to 8 along with other reductions.

The Denton Record-Chronicle’s Brett Vito has provided further details:

The league made several other changes, including:

  • The tournament field in volleyball will be cut from eight to four with the top-seeded team hosting the event. The regular season will be reduced from 14 to 13 games.
  • The number of regular season games in women’s soccer will be cut from 10 to six, a move that will allow programs to schedule more regional nonconference games and reduce travel costs.
  • The number of conference games in softball will be trimmed from 24 to 15, a move that will also allow for more regional nonconference scheduling.
  • The travel squads in track and field, cross country and swimming will also be reduced.

In addition to those changes, the baseball tournament will move from a neutral site to team venues. Rice will host at Reckling Park in 2023.

The reported changes align with expectations. Travel budgets are going to be tight in 2020 and into the next several seasons, at least. Seeing the total number of conference games decrease makes sense.

Adopting a model akin to the Ivy League where regular-season conference champions received any postseason bids in lieu of playing a conference tournament was on the table. The conference stopped short of changes that drastic, but the cutbacks detailed above are still sizable.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

How this plays out remains to be seen and could hinge on which games replace former league games. The more teams able to swap games against distance conference foes with in-state rivalries, the better. For Rice, this likely means adding more competitions against teams like Houston, Texas State and SMU. That, of course, will be contingent to some extent on changes to other conferences’ schedules. Getting dates with Texas and Texas A&M should be on the radar as well.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

Recent Posts