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Rice Basketball Roundup: Owls sweep three-game home slate

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It was a good weekend for Rice basketball, who swept their three-game slate over five days to stay undefeated at Tudor Fieldhouse.

  • Thursday | Rice 92 – North American 54
  • Saturday | Rice 110 – Northwestern State 73
  • Monday | Rice 100 – Jarvis Christian 64

Frankly, Rice basketball took care of business this weekend against teams they should have beaten soundly. To some extent, that’s par for the course, but it was encouraging to see just how quickly they dispatched these three, particularly their Saturday win over Northwestern State.

The Demons entered that game 8-2 with a road win over No. 15 TCU and over the Owls’ former C-USA foe Southern Miss under their belts. Yet Rice romped easily at home.

Quincy Olivari was unstoppable, topping 17 points in all three contests, and he would have had many more had he come close to his normal complement of minutes. Max Fiedler had a double-double against Jarvis Christian and a season-high 22 points against Northwestern State. Travis Evee even got back on track, going 4-for-6 from three on Monday evening, scoring 14 points.

The Owls opened the benches in all three games, getting valuable minutes for younger players who — if past seasons are any indication — might very well be called upon for expanded minutes down the stretch.

Up Next | Full Schedule

Then next time Rice basketball takes the court they’ll be in the thick of Conference USA play. The Owls have already played one conference game, a strange mid-November road tilt against Middle Tennessee, which they lost. Up next after Christmas are road against at Western Kentucky (Thr, Dec. 29) and at UTEP (Sat, Dec. 31).

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Rice Football Recruiting: Former Husker OL Brant Banks commits to Owls

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The 2023 Rice Football recruiting has added a Big Ten transfer in the trenches. Former Nebraska offensive lineman Brant Banks has committed to the Owls.

Rice Football recruiting classes have always stressed talent up front, making the addition of at least one veteran offensive lineman a must for the 2023 class. Rice has filled that need with a productive transfer from Nebraska. Houston native Brant Banks has announced he’s coming home and has committed to the Owls.

Banks played his high school ball at Westbury Christian where he played both ways before heading north to the Big Red. He originally chose Nebraska over offers from around the country. He turned down Baylor, Boston College, Cal, Houston, Pitt and Missouri.

After redshirting in 2019, Banks became a key special teams player and offensive line contributor from that point onward. Banks started the 2021 season opener against Illinois and saw extensive action in several other contests.

In addition to his prowess on the football field, Banks actually suited up for the Nebraska men’s basketball team prior to the Big Ten Tournament following the 2019 season. He played three minutes in the Huskers’ first round game against Indiana. A big man that can move is always a plus and Banks’ brief appearance on the hardwood gives evidence he can do just that.

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Banks has some high school film available if you want to dig that far back, but the reality is the 6-foot-7, 300-pounder has only grown bigger and stronger since those clips were taken. He’s a Big Ten-caliber blocker who can move people around. That’s a big plus for a Rice offensive line that needs reinforcements. Here’s a clip from the Huskers’ spring media sessions before the season.

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Rice Football Recruiting: TE Matt Hall commits to Owls

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The 2023 Rice Football recruiting class is making key additions from the Transfer Portal including Truman State’s Matt Hall who has committed to the Owls.

A veteran tight end seemed an obvious candidate for the 2023 Rice Football recruiting class, given how important the position is to the Owls’ offense. With the Early Signing Period just days away, Rice has their man. Truman State grad transfer Matt Hall has committed to the Owls.

Hall comes to Rice after a standout career at Truman State, a Division II program in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. In three seasons, Hall caught 86 passes for 962 yards and 13 touchdowns. He averaged 11.2 yards per catch and mixed in a few explosive plays, too.

For Hall, Rice was near the top of his list from the start. “There were three things I was looking for,” Hall told The Roost. “A place with great culture, a place that has great academics, and a place that would challenge me on and off the field to be a better player, student, and man. Rice checked every one of those boxes.”

Rice tried to engineer a similar addition at this time last year, landing a commitment from Cal transfer tight end Gavin Reinwald. Unfortunately, Reinwald never saw the field at Rice following a preseason injury. A healthy Hall should ease the burden from starter Jack Bradley and provide the Rice offense with another vertical threat.

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What Rice football saw in Hall becomes pretty clear from a brief glance at his film or a look at his boxscore. He’s fluid in space, can get downfield and make a play after the catch. He’s an aggressive blocker that can fill multiple roles within the Rice offense. He’s going to provide instant production to a position that needed another trustworthy option.

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Rice Football: Disappointed Owls ready to turn the page

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Rice football found itself on the wrong side of history in the Lending Tree Bowl against Southern Miss. Now they’re ready to turn the page.

Nobody in the Rice football locker room had envisioned participating in what Mike Bloomgren aptly dubbed “the Frank Gore show” on a chilly December night in Mobile, AL. The last team to make it into the postseason was rewarded with a spot in college football history, albeit one they’d rather not be linked to. In some ways, though, it’s a fitting in-between that’s representative of who this team was this season.

“There are a lotta guys in that locker room that are in shambles,” head coach Mike Bloomgren said after the game. “They’re incredibly invested in what we’re doing and they wanted to find a way to win this game, but we didn’t get it done.”

The failure drops the Owls to 5-8. It’s their most wins since 2014, yet somehow symbolizes the floor of expectations moving forward. Senior defensive end Ikenna Enechukwu, who likely played in his last game as an Owl, forcing a fumble and being credited with a sack, said as much in his comments following the game.

More: Takeaways from Rice football loss to Southern Miss

“I want this to the bare minimum for them,” he said. “The bare minimum should be those six wins and they should be aiming for that conference championship, even if it’s in the AAC. I feel like they can do it.”

In a sense, Enechukwu knew that being in Mobile as a five-win team required a stroke of luck. Rice didn’t get much luck on Saturday evening, whether from their own efforts, a set of dubious officials or anyone else. The results were what they were. Now the next step is figuring out how to be on the right side of history next year and beyond.

There is hope on that front. Freshman quarterback AJ Padgett completed 19-of-37 passes for 295 yards and three touchdowns against Southern Miss, just his second career start. Luke McCaffrey, who led the Owls in receptions, was a go-to target for Padgett after missing essentially the last three games. Joshua Pearcy had a sack.

Joining Enechukwu, Gabe Taylor and Izeya Floyd each forced fumbles. The offense finished with two turnovers of their own, the final one occurring on the arm of backup quarterback Shawqi Itraish in the final minutes. Still, it was only the third time this season Rice had finished with a positive turnover differential. And most of those playmakers are set to return.

And then there’s Padgett, who transformed himself from a fourth-stringer to starter in the span of a few weeks. Whether he’s given the shot to start next season or not, he wasn’t afraid to echo the sentiments of Enechukwu and Bloomgren when they turned their eyes to the future,

“[Going bowling] should 100 percent be the standard. If that’s not the standard, then what is? We should approach a season with the attitude that we want to win a bowl game. We want to win conference. We want to beat everybody we play,” he declared. “I don’t really think there’s any other mindset to approach a season with or you’re just going out there to lose and that’s not what I’m about. I’m a ballplayer. I go out there to win.”

Rice didn’t win on Saturday. Everyone is crushed by that. Now they’re tasked with getting their house in order for 2023 to ensure that a loss like that — bowl game or otherwise — isn’t a part of their future again.

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Rice Football overrun by Frank Gore, Southern Miss in Lending Tree Bowl

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Frank Gore Jr. proved too much to handle for Rice Football, who were unable to overcome his record-setting game at the Lending Tree Bowl.

A slow start, a furious rally and a Frank Gore-filled fourth quarter sent Rice football home from Mobile, Alabama without a win. Rice took a 24-17 lead in the third quarter of the Lending Tree Bowl before being outscored 21-0 for the remainder of the contest. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Hang in there

The game did not start out well for the blue and gray. Southern Miss raced down the field for the opening score. Rice punted on their next drive. Then after a defensive stand, Rice had what appeared to be a clear targeting flag against running back Quinton Jackson picked up prior to Rice turning the ball over.

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As has been the case with so many Rice turnovers this year, the play was absurd and strange. Padgett squeezed a ball in between two defenders into the waiting arms of Jack Bradley who appeared so surprised that the ball reached him that he never went on to complete the catch. Rice wouldn’t challenge, though, and the nation’s leading turnover team added one more to their ledger.

Outside of a series of three consecutive 20-yard plays, the offense wouldn’t do much of note in the first half. The defense was in survival mode and the Owls can’t have been too upset to enter the break down trailing by just two scores.

Boom and bust

The Rice defense was back and forth all night, seemingly oscillating between big plays for either side. They held Southern Miss to 3.3 yards per carry on their first 11 carries of the night… then the twelfth happened, a 64-yard touchdown run by Frank Gore Jr.

That’s kind of how the early portions of the evening went for the Owls. The pass rush was, for the most part, particularly effective. Ikenna Enechukwu got the ball back himself once, but even when they didn’t get home, they forced Southern Miss quarterback Trey Lowe to force throws, often ending in the dirt. The front four plugged gaps and made running lanes hard to reach.

Not long after near the end of the second quarter a 55-yard completion set the Golden Eagles up inside the 10. Pass interference gave them a fresh set of downs inside the two. They had to settle for a field goal. Had it not been for the few big plays sprinkled in, this would have read like a strong defensive performance.

Rice did not have a single tackle for a loss against North Texas. They had seven against Southern Miss, two sacks and knocked the ball away from Trey Lowe twice. They forced a crucial fourth quarter fumble from Gore. They were disruptive and impacted the game in a big way.

But the busts were real. Gore made Rice pay dearly for their inability to tackle late and every misstep in their front. He exploded for an NCAA bowl-record 329 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns, tacking on a passing touchdown for good measure. Whether Rice ran out of gas or not, they couldn’t handle Gore when it counted down the stretch.

AJ Padgett swagger

In the second half, Rice started to find its rhythm on offense and they found it by keying in on the pattern they discovered on their longest drive of the first half. The Owls utilized their speed from side to side, running reverses and sweeps to bring the defense in and then taking shots down the field. Like this:

The conductor of the offensive explosion was AJ Padgett, who transformed from his first-half self. Padgett started the third quarter with completions on 9-of-10 passes for 154 yards and three touchdowns. That, after a first-half mark of 7-of-13 passes for 84 yards and no scores.

It’s hard not to overstate just how incredible Padgett’s explosion really was. He was the scout team quarterback just two weeks ago. He’s the fourth different option the Owls have turned to under center this season and was playing in just his third career game against a pretty good defense that had his number early on.

In the third quarter, Rice scored touchdowns of 26 yards, 32 yards and 18 yards. Only once this season had Rice exceeded two touchdowns in a game from outside the redzone. That came against Charlotte, with the final score coming with the Owls trailing by multiple scores against backups on defense.

Including the touchdown scores, Rice had nine pass plays of 15+ yards and four rushing plays of 10+ yards. Cam Montgomery had the long run, breaking off a 57-yard gain on the ground. The longest pass play came on a leaping 34-yard reception by Quinton Jackson.

Then he lit them up. All the while being beaten up and bruised by a front seven that gave the Rice defensive line fits all night. Padgett was stellar, and that would have been the case if he’d been a veteran starter. Unfortunately, he would be unable to finish the job, leaving the game in the fourth quarter after taking a particularly nasty hit. As the protection wore down, so too did the Rice offense.

5-8

It’s been a tumultuous season, and as the fans trickle out of Hancock Whitney Stadium on a mid-December Saturday evening, there’s a bitter taste that will linger following a loss in the Lending Tree Bowl to Southern Miss.

Although it’s unequivocally true that Rice football has officially accomplished one major goals (reaching a bowl game), a 5-8 record will be tough to swallow, even with a back-and-forth game that went down to the wire.

From training camp until the moment the clock hit triple zeroes, the well-verbalized expectation for this program was to go to a bowl game and to win it. The path was unconventional — Rice made it here via APR score, not the more conventional six-win threshold — and the results show this team still isn’t quite where they’d like to be.

To be quite honest, that sets things up for a pivotal brave new world in 2023 when Rice will move to the American Athletic Conference. But that’s a discussion for the offseason. For now, it’s safe to say progress has been made, but there is more needed to be achieved for Rice football to be where they truly want to be.

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