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Rice Women’s Basketball soars past Temple in AAC Tourney Semis

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No. 9 Seed Rice Women’s Basketball never looked like the underdog, blowing past No. 4 Seed Temple to advance to the AAC Tournament Championship Game.

Rice women’s basketball looked much more like the defending American Conference Tournament Champs than the Cinderella their seed suggested they should be. The No. 9 Seed Rice Owls absorbed the first blow from No. 4 Seed Temple, closing the first quarter on a 13-4 as they took the lead and started to grow it.

Rice held Temple to just four field goals in the second quarter, stretching their advantage to as many as 10 points in the first half. Temple did not hit a three in the first half — they were shutout from deep in the second half, as well — and lost the rebounding battle before break, a focal point for the underdog Rice all season long.

More: Rice Football: 2025 Recruiting Class Analysis — Defense

The onslaught continued after halftime. Rice opened the third quarter with seven straight points, catapulting the lead back to double-double digits, where it would stay for the remainder of the game. Temple trailed by 15 after three quarters and by as many as 20 points midway through the fourth. Temple was never able to claw back because they weren’t able to score.

Temple finished below 50 points for just the second time all season, the first coming in December against No. 15 West Virginia.

“Our defense was incredible. We hung our hat on our defense,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said,.” [We] held them to 31 percent [shooting]. They’re a great team, but I think it just shows how great our defense was tonight.”

Malia Fisher, the MVP of the 2024 AAC Tournament, led all scorers with 18 points and had nine rebounds. Aniah Alexis continued her strong postseason performance with another double-digit scoring output, adding 14 points of her own to the cause.

Final Box | Rice 67, Temple 49

Highlights

What They’re Saying | Press Conference

Key takeaway | Saving Their Best for Last

Rice women’s basketball has won three straight games in the American Athletic Conference Tournament, defeating UAB, UTSA and Temple in successive days to improve to 7-0 in this tournament in program history.

Despite the Owls’ success in Fort Worth dating back to last year, this season’s squad never won more than two consecutive games against conference opponents in the regular season. To think they’ve be able to do this, and do it in such emphatic fashion, is extraordinary.

A season ago, Rice benefited from someone else defeating the No. 1 seed and beat then No. 3 Seed Temple by three. This time Rice took down the top seed and they followed it up by No. 4 Seed Temple by 18.

“I about how we’ve been here before and knowing that we’re very capable of doing what needs to be done,” Malia Fisher remarked, referencing how she and the team stay focused during such a strenuous run. “We just built off each other’s energy,” Aniah Alexis added.

This sets the Owls up for a winner-take-all game tomorrow with the chance to reach consecutive NCAA Tournaments for the first time in program history. The method has certainly been unconventional. This entered the season as a top pick in the conference standings before limping into March. Coach Edmonds certainly hopes they have one more win in them.

“I think we just keep doing what we’re doing right now. We are playing with a lot of energy. We’re playing with a lot of emotion. We’re playing like we’re not ready for it to be over with,” she said. “It’s great to get to the championship but now we have one more that we got to be able to get in order to be getting back into the big dance, and that’s obviously the goal.”

Up Next: AAC Championship vs Winner of No. 2-Seed North Texas vs No. 3-Seed South Florida

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TAMU-CC hands Rice baseball tenth straight loss

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The early season tailspin continued for Rice baseball on Monday night, falling 9-2 at home to Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

In what has become a recurring nightmare, Rice baseball stepped into the batters in the bottom of the first inning trailing. Visiting Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, which until two seasons ago was 0-20 against the Owls all time, put up a three-spot in the first frame and forced opening pitcher Blaine Brown from the ballgame.

The Islanders tacked on one more in the second, two in the third and another in the fourth to go in front 7-0. Rice would score twice in the fourth, the first on an RBI single to left from Brown and the next on a sacrifice fly from Treyton Rank. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi got both runs back in the sixth and maintained that seven-run advantage into the ninth.

Last Time Out: Rice baseball swept by Yale

Rice got two runs back in the ninth on an RBI single from Cole Green, one of several freshman having a remarkably encouraging season despite the circumstances. It would be too little, too late as Rice fell again, stretching their losing streak to 10 consecutive games.

What it means | When it rains, it pours

It’s been a perfect storm for a disastrous start for Rice baseball. A rough week against some of the nation’s best teams at the Astros Foundation College Classic marked the beginning of a stretch of nine games across 11 days.

Add in short outings from starting pitching and a bullpen leaking runs by the inning and you get the makings of a skid. Multiply that by so many games in such a short period of time and you get a 10-game losing streak and a 2-14 record.

More: First reports from Rice Football Spring Practice

Rice baseball has done plenty to shoot itself if the foot this season. Coaches and players alike have taken their fair share of the blame. But on nights like tonight, the totality of the misery is hard to overlook.

ON DECK | vs Houston Christian x4 (Fri-Sun)

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Rice Football 2025 Spring Practice Notebook 1: Spring Intros

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The 2025 Rice Football spring practices are officially underway as head coach Scott Abell and his staff get their first looks at the Owls on the field.

For the first time with head coach Scott Abell at the helm, Rice football hit the practice field. As has been the custom in recent years, the Owls will practice for a week, take a short hiatus for spring break, and then return to finish practices, concluding with the spring game on April 12. That’s a brief window to accomplish a lot.

Stay tuned for updates throughout the weeks ahead, starting now with Abell’s opening comments, some forthcoming tweaks to the defensive scheme, individual standouts early on and much more.

Abell’s expectations

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2025 AAC Men’s Basketball Tournament Preview

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The 2025 AAC Men’s Basketball Tournament is slated to tip off in DFW this week. Here’s a preview of the action.

The Favorite: Memphis

At 16-2 in league play and 26-5 overall, Memphis is the front runner to cut down the nets this season, entering the conference tournament as the No. 2 scoring team in the league, thanks to PJ Haggerty and company with strong defensive metrics to go alongside it. The only AAC team in the top 50 of KenPom as of Monday, anything less that a tournament championship would be disappointing for this program.

The Contenders: North Texas, UAB

There are at least two squads capable of thwarting the Tigers’ aspirations. UAB is the only team in the league that averages more points per game than Memphis while North Texas allows nearly 13 points fewer per game than the Tigers. Neither has been as consistent as Memphis has been this season, but both boast NCAA Tournament history and enough talent to beat the Tigers head-to-head. The Mean Green came closest to doing that in the regular season, losing by four in Memphis.

The Dark Horse: FAU

Florida Atlantic is as battle tested as they come and despite an uninspiring 17-14 record. The Owls looked to be contenders for an top four seed at times this year, but a three game losing streak in late February, including losses to Memphis and North Texas, buffeted them down to the five spot. FAU can shoot it and has moments on defense to stay afloat on that side of the court.

The Wild Card: Temple

When in doubt, bet on the three ball to cause chaos in March. Temple is second in the conference behind Memphis in three point field goal percentage and is one of the teams most capable of getting hot behind the arc and knocking off someone they shouldn’t. Once that happens, it’s anyone’s guess how the rest of the tournament might play out.

The Bracket

The opening play-in game will take place on Wednesday, March 12, with first full day of action set for Thursday, March 13. Here is the slate for the first two days. The full schedule is available on the conference website. All early-round games can be streamed on ESPN+, with the championship on ESPNU.

First Round | Wednesday, March 12 (Super Pit in Denton, TX)

Game 1: No. 13 Charlotte vs. No. 1 Rice – 12 p.m. CT

Second Round | Thursday, March 13 (Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, TX)

Game 2: No. 9 South Florida vs. No. 8 Wichita State – 11:30 a.m. CT
Game 3: Game 1 winner vs. No. 5 FAU – 1:30 p.m. CT
Game 4: No. 10 Tulsa vs. No. 7 Temple – 6 p.m. CT
Game 5: No. 11 UTSA vs. No. 6 ECU – 8 p.m. CT

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Rice Women’s basketball upsets UTSA, on to AAC Semis

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Rice Women’s Basketball remains undefeated in AAC Tournament games, improving to 6-0 all time with an upset of 1-Seed UTSA.

After playing UTSA close in a pair of regular season contests, Rice women’s basketball entered their AAC Tournament quarterfinal with hopes that the third time would be the charm. While the Roadrunners led for most of the first quarter, the Owls rattled off a 9-0 run early in the second quarter to take a four-point lead into halftime.

Rice would maintain that advantage throughout the third quarter, leaning on a couple of well-timed threes from Dominque Ennis to keep UTSA at arm’s length. A free throw from Sussy Ngulefac pushed the Owls’ lead to nine, their largest of the afternoon to that point, in the closing moments of the third.

More: Rice Football: 2025 Recruiting Class Analysis — Defense

UTSA collected themselves in the changeover before the final frame began, opening the scoring with eight straight to claw back within a single point. Onlookers collectively drew in deep breaths, wondering if a fourth quarter collapse was looming or if the resilient March-tested version of Rice women’s basketball would emerge in a do-or-die moment. It was the latter.

A jumper from Aniah Alexis, sandwiched between a pair of threes from Victoria Flores turned a one-score game upside down. Up by nine points with 1:41 to play, the Owls were able to lean on their defense, knock down a few free throws, and walk away from the court with the biggest upset of the AAC Tournament thus far.

Final Box | Rice 62, UTSA 58

What They’re Saying | Post Game Press Conference

Key takeaway | Tournament Owls

Rice is undefeated in AAC Tournament games. That streak will end at some point, probably. UConn managed never to lose an AAC Tournament game, but barring historic dominance, a loss in the AAC Tournament will come. Rice is just hoping that eventual defeat holds off a while longer.

“There was a different aura about us, a different walk about us, a different talk about us,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said, reflecting on her program’s ability to flip a switch and play their best basketball in these do-or-die moments. “So “maybe it is a thing. Whatever it is, I want to bottle it up and I want to keep going for two more.”

Or, more succinctly in the words of an assistant coach to the team this week, “The Tournament Owls are back.

The version of Rice women’s basketball that took the court against UTSA on Monday afternoon sure looked like the one that was promised months ago. The team that talked about seedings and NCAA Tournament expectations had the talent and the swagger to take down a team that was receiving votes in the NCAA Top 25. But for whatever the reason, that team hasn’t shown up very often this season. Not until now.

“I think winning [the conference tournament- last year, we’ve taken a lot of that mentality. We know how to win. We know what it takes to come from the bottom and finish on the top,” she said. “We’re trying to bottle up that experience and take it with us now and finish with a ring.”

It might have been easy to look past the version of Rice women’s basketball that struggled through January and February. However, nobody is looking past the Owls right now who stand two wins away from an improbable return to the Big Dance.

Up Next: AAC Tournament Winner of 12-Seed Charlotte vs 4-Seed Temple

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