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Rice Women’s Basketball cruises past Delaware, advances to WNIT Finals

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Nothing could stop a Rice women’s basketball program on a mission. The Owls cruised past Delaware, punching their ticket to the 2021 WNIT Championship Game.

Early in the first quarter, Rice women’s basketball was deadlocked at 12 points apiece with WNIT semi-final foe Delaware. Then the Owls, who were already shooting at a blistering pace, cranked up the intensity to another level.

Rice reeled off a 12-2 run, seven of those points coming from Sydne Wiggins, and ended the first quarter with a 10-point lead. The second quarter was all Owls. Rice extended their advantage to 18-points. This time it was Catelyn Crosthwait who led the charge. The sophomore guard scored seven of the Owls’ 18 points in that frame, giving Rice ample breathing room at the break.

Rice Football: Spring Practice Notebook – Week 3

By the midpoint of the third quarter, Rice was shooting 60 percent from the field. That pace would fade a bit down the stretch, but Delaware came nowhere near that efficiency. Jasmine Dickey led the Blue Hens with 25 points, but it took her 30 shots and nine free throw attempts to get there. Rice guard Lauren Schwartz tied Dickey in scoring but amassed her 25 points on just 12 shots and 10 free throw attempts.

Schwartz, Crosthwait and the remainder of the Owls were so efficient from the floor they didn’t require any points from center Nancy Mulkey. The senior center was held scoreless on three field goal attempts and Rice still managed to cruise to a double-digit victory. Mulkey did lead the team with 11 rebounds, three blocks and tied a career-high five assists.

Player of the Game – Katelyn Crosthwait

Crosthwait scored a career-high 20 points, contributing a team-best four three-pointers in the Owls’ semifinal victory. She was perfect from the foul line (4-of-4) and added five rebounds. Her scoring ability enabled the Owls to space the floor and open lanes for her teammates. Adding a three-point element to the Owls’ already efficient offense makes this a challenging team to beat.

Up Next

Rice women’s basketball has punched their ticket to the WNIT Championship where they’ll face Ole Miss. The Rebels beat Northern Iowa in the semifinals on Friday night. Tip time is scheduled for 1:00 p.m on Sunday, March 28.

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The Roost Podcast | Ep 72 – Aston Walter and spring practice “Believe it or Not”

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We catch up with former Rice football running back Aston Walter on this week’s show and dive into trends and surprises from spring practice.

Spring is in the air and Rice football is on the grass. More than half of the spring sessions have passed, giving us a decent sample size to draw conclusions from. You can find the full practice reports when you subscribe on Patreon.

On this week’s show, we broke down those observations by playing a quick game of “Believe it or Not.” Then we were joined by former Rice football running back Austin Walter, now a graduate assistant at Vanderbilt. He detailed his dreams of being a coach and his journey since he left Rice.

You can always find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 72.

Episode Notes

  • Housekeeping
    • Plan on hearing more from The Roost Podcast in your feed every other week as we continue our interview series. We’ll have some returning guests and hopefully a few new Owls to talk with over the next few months.
    • Please support us on Patreon. Be the first to get the inside scoop on what’s going on with Rice football and stick around for even further analysis. That includes spring football practices, currently underway.
      Become a Patron!
  • Aston Walter joins the show to discuss…
    • His journey into coaching
    • His work as an assistant under David Bailiff at Texas A&M Commerce last year
    • What he’s learned about scheme and skills along the way
    • The move to Vanderbilt and life as a graduate assistant

Where can you find us?

Download and subscribe to The Roost Podcast on any of your favorite podcast providers. The show is available on iTunes, GooglePlay, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn and PodBean. Please consider leaving a review wherever you listen.

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Rice Women’s Basketball: Rally falls short vs MTSU in CUSA Tournament finale

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Rice women’s basketball lost a heartbreaker in the final seconds to Middle Tennesee in 2021 Conference USA Tournament Championship Game.

Middle Tennessee was picked to win Conference USA in the preseason polls. Rice women’s basketball were the defending champs and finished with the best record in the regular season. It was only fitting that these were the two teams pitted against each other in the conference championship game on Saturday night.

A rematch of the 2019 Championship Game between these two teams, the 2021 edition shared an eerie resemblance early on. Middle Tennessee took a modest 32-26 lead into halftime, never getting too far ahead, but doing enough to keep Rice off balance. Courtney Witson’s five three-pointers in the first half were crucial to Middle Tennessee’s early success.

Both teams went on runs in the third quarter, with Rice clawing ever so slightly closer. In the fourth quarter, Nancy Mulkey got hot. She scored the first six points in the final frame, giving Rice the lead for the first time since they led 6-5 in the first quarter.

Podcast: Former Rice football star Christian Covington talks football, Marvel

Then came a heart-stopping finale. Middle Tennessee went on an 11-0 run to go up by 10. Rice responded with a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to three. Trailing by two, Rice had the ball with a chance to force overtime, but a pass to Mulkey in the paint was knocked away leaving Rice with little more than a full-court hail mary on the ensuing possession that fell short.

Mulkey finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks. Katelyn Crosthwait and Jasmine Smith both had 13 points, with Smith tallying a double-double with 10 rebounds.

After the game, head coach Tina Langley took the blame for the heartbreaking result: “In the end, I thought I could have made some better decisions for our team,” she said. “I thought they fought their tails off. Really this is on me.”

With the win, Middle Tennesee clinches an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. Rice women’s basketball will now await their postseason fate, announced on Selection Monday. By RPI, the Owls stand a decent chance to earn an at-large berth, but the NET Rankings have them as a fringe team, at best. Given the weighting toward NET, the Owls’ season could very well be done.

No matter what happens on Monday, it was another remarkable run for this team.

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Rice Women’s Basketball 2021: Owls explode past FIU in CUSA Tourney

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Rice women’s basketball picked up where they left in Conference USA Tournament, roaring past FIU to advance to the semifinals.

What ended as another dominant conference win didn’t start that way. Rice women’s basketball found themselves trailing 23-14 at the end of the first quarter in their opening game of the Conference USA Tournament against FIU. The Panthers were fresh off a first-round win over Southern Miss and came out of the gates red-hot.

Head coach Tina Langley didn’t call a time out to settle her squad down. She didn’t hesitate to take Nancy Mulkey out of the game and cycle through the Owls’ rotation. Instead, she stuck to her guns and trusted her experienced team to figure things out.

Over the span of the next quarter and a half, Rice outscored FIU 45-14.

Read More: Rice Football spring practice notebook – Week 1

“Resiliency” was the word Langley used in the aftermath of the Owls’ fourth consecutive Conference USA Tournament win. This team doesn’t often get punched in the mouth, but when they do, they respond well. Lauren Schwartz exploded with a career-high 27-point performance. Jasmine Smith and Sydne Wiggins put on a clinic of their own, dishing out 11 of the Owls’ 26 assists, a tournament record.

Rice held FIU to seven points in the third quarter. By the time the Panthers had recovered, it was too late. After shooting 63 percent from the field in the first quarter, FIU would finish the game at a paltry 36 percent. They made 10 shots in the first quarter, but just nine shots in the second half. Once more, the Rice defense slammed the door.

Rice women’s basketball is scheduled to play Old Dominion at 5:30 p.m. Friday on Stadium. The Monarchs advanced to the quarterfinals following upsets of 3-Seed North Texas and 2-Seed Charlotte

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Rice Football 2021: Spring Practice Week 1 Notebook

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Rice football returned to the practice field this week. Here are a few initial reactions from the first week of spring ball.

For the first time in three months, Rice football put on the pads and hit the practice field. It was a refreshing sight that seemed almost normal after a winter that was anything but conventional.

There were a few new faces this time, including quarterback Jake Constantine. But there were things to be learned from players head coach Mike Bloomgren would dub “the old heads” as well. We dug into some initial thoughts on the depth charts earlier this week. This edition will focus on what transpired on the grass itself.

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