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Rice Women’s Basketball bests UAB, moves on in AAC Tourney

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Rice Women’s Basketball bounced back from a regular season loss at UAB, getting the better of the Blazers in the AAC Tournament to survive and advance.

Defense set the tone for Rice women’s basketball in their opening game of the American Athletic Conference Tournament against UAB. They gave up 87 points to the Blazers in Birmingham in February, the start of an extended losing streak that dropped the Owls to the No. 10 seed in this year’s field.

“We started out fast,” Destiny Jackson said after the win. “Just having that mentality that mindset, the want-to the hunger to want to win and not like play to not lose, but to play to win.”

Rice held UAB to 29 first-half points on 31 percent shooting, locking down the perimeter and controlling the boards as they set the tone for what was to come. Rice took charge in earnest midway through the second quarter. After a 6-0 run to start the frame, UAB would convert just two field goals through the rest of the period as Rice outscored them 18-5 to take a nine-point advantage into the break.

More: Takeaways from first week Rice Football spring practice 

Rice leaned on the combination of Malia Fisher and Sussy Ngulefac to lengthen their lead in the third, firmly putting the game into the Owls’ control, a stark difference from how things went the first time against UAB.

“I really think the difference between this past game and the one before is that all 15 of us had the mentality that we had the capabilities to beat anybody if we set our mind to it,” Fisher said. “Everybody came out and executed to the best of their abilities, and everybody did what they were supposed to do.”

That duo of Fisher and Ngulefac accounted for 16 of the Owls’ 20 points, getting ahead by as many as 19 points and giving the Owls line of sight to the next round of the tournament. Following an uneventful fourth quarter, Rice solidified those aspirations, punching their ticket to the next round and a rematch against North Texas.

Final Box | Rice 71 – UAB 56

What They’re Saying

“We’re on a mission. It doesn’t matter who we play and what happened in the previous games because everybody is win or go home, but we got a little bit of a bad taste in our mouth from the last time we played North Texas so that should fuel us. We did a lot of good things in that game. We forced a lot of turnovers. We had a lot of steals. We had a lot of offensive rebounds. We held them to a low scoring night, but that doesn’t mean anything. We got to come out and do it again and we got to do more than what we did the last time.

Whoever we’re playing we’re going to be ready to face, regardless of what the outcome was the last time, because we have a mission that we’re trying to accomplish.” – Head coach Lindsay Edmonds

Key takeaway | Starters strong

Rice women’s basketball leaned heavily on its bench this season, more so than any other team in the AAC. With the season on the line, they flipped the script, riding their starters to a dominant win to keep their season alive. The Owls averaged 25.2 bench points per game entering this contest.

When the fourth quarter began, the Rice bench had totaled five points, picking up the bulk of their 12 total bench points in the game after the team had established a sizable lead.

Our team is deep. I’ve said it all year long. When we show up, we can go deep into our bench and not have a huge drop off, but also, when our starters get us off to a good start, there’s where we’re at our best. ”

Fisher had a team-high 20 points. Jackson was right behind with 14. Ngulefac has 12. No bench player had more than five. That isn’t necessarily prescriptive of how this team has to play moving forward, but what Edmonds said is certainly true. When the Rice starters play well, this team’s ceiling is tremendous.

Up Next: vs North Texas on Monday, March 11 at 6:00 pm

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Rice Basketball drops Senior Day battle to North Texas

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Rice basketball and North Texas battled back and forth throughout the first half before the Mean Green found another gear and pulled away, handing the Owls a loss on Senior Day.

The latest edition of an intrastate rivalry between Rice basketball and North Texas began with a technical foul against the Owls, dictated by AAC league rules because of shot clocks that weren’t working properly. That malfunction spotted the Mean Green to an early 1-0 lead and seemed to light a fire under the Owls, who didn’t trail for long.

After trading a few early baskets, Rice went on an 11-0 run, erasing a North Texas lead and giving the Owls a two-point advantage. From that point onward, the game was on.

Travis Evee, who led Rice in scoring with 21 points for the game, helped extend the Owls’ lead to as many as five points in the first half. When North Texas leveled the score once more in the second half Rice turned to everyone they could to keep the game within reach, but nobody had much success shooting after the halftime buzzer.

Rice made six field goals in the second half, shooting a dismal 22.2 percent from the floor. No amount of defensive production was going to make up for that level of shooting woe. The Owls end their season on a four-game losing streak heading into the AAC Tournament.

Final Box | North Texas 71 – Rice 55

Key takeaway | Insurmountable shooting slumps

Scoring droughts have been a persistent challenge for Rice basketball this season. There always seem to be a few moments in each game when something gets gummed up in the offense, causing prolonged stretches without points. Often, that’s proved disastrous for the Owls, allowing early leads to evaporate and causing close games to get away from them in the second half.

Against North Texas, Rice has two such instances. In the first half, Rice missed five field goals in a row, falling behind nine. The combo of Evee and Max Fiedler helped right the ship, powering the Owls back to an even game.

The next stretch came midway through the second half. Rice missed eight shots in a row and 12 shots out of 13. That resulted in a span of 10 minutes of court time with two made baskets, transforming a 1-point lead into a 10-point deficit. When Rice was forced to take a timeout with 2:24 on the clock, they had all but run out of time to mount a comeback.

This has been a streaky team all season. They can turn it on and score in bunches, but if they don’t find a way to smooth over their droughts and make them either less frequent or less severe, they won’t be sticking around very long in the upcoming conference tournament.

Up Next: AAC Tournament

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Rice Basketball comes up short at Charlotte

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Rice basketball stayed within striking distance but was never able to land a finishing blow, dropping a hard-fought game to Charlotte.

It wouldn’t have been readily apparent to any onlookers Wednesday night that the on-court battle they were witnessing was between teams on opposite ends of the American Conference standings. Rice basketball took Charlotte to the wire, coming within a timely basket or two of upsetting one of the AAC’s best.

Rice was able to keep things close thanks to an inspired performance by their defense. Charlotte shot just 36 percent from the field and 6-of-27 (22 percent) from three, essentially relying on forward Igor Milicic (26 points, 10 rebounds) to carry the rest of the team.

More: Roost Podcast — Spring Roundup

Charlotte led by seven at halftime and increased their edge to as many as 12 points. But each and every time the game got to the brink, Rice battled back. Midway through the second half, Travis Evee and Max Fiedler spurred an 11-2 run that brought the game within three points. Then the battle was on.

Both sides traded baskets as the clock wound down. Anthony Selden delivered a slashing layup to get the score within two with 26 seconds to play. Charlotte would hit their free throws and hold on, but not without some labored breathing down the stretch.

Final Box | Charlotte 69 – Rice 65

Key takeaway | Workable rotations

It’s taken most of the season to get to this point, but Rice basketball seems to have found itself the right balance of starters’ minutes, bench usage and rotations between the two units. Andrew Akuchie has been effective in his minutes, but so too has Anthony Selden off the bench and Keanu Dawes, albeit not as much against Charlotte.

This roster has talent, more so than it did at this point last season. Trusting that talent to come through in crucial situations should be the next step of a progressing program. It hasn’t resulted in victories as often as the Owls’ faithful would have hoped, but the pieces are there.

If Rice can add an effective three-point shot to a roster that is effective up close — Rice led Charlotte 40-26 in points in the paint — they could make some noise over the last few weeks of the season. The players are there.

Up Next: at North Texas (Wednesday, Mar. 9)

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Rice Baseball bounces back with midweek win over PVAMU

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Rice Baseball got back in the win column on Tuesday night, taking care of business against Prairie View A&M at Reckling Park, 6-1.

Prairie View struck first on Tuesday night, launching a second inning pitch from Rice baseball starter Robert Fernandez over the right field wall to take the lead. The Owls were able to respond immediately, softening any lingering concerns about the offensive woes showcased in their weekend series loss to Stanford with a trio of multi-run frames.

Last Time Out: Rice Baseball swept by Stanford

Ben Royo collected the first RBI in the bottom of the second, moving the line with a single to left center. Max Johnson followed with a sacrifice fly to put Rice in front, 2-1. Staked to a modest lead, Fernandez and the bullpen, patrolled this time by Jackson Mayo and Mauricio Rodriguez, keep the Panthers’ bats quiet.

PVAMU had two hits and two walks, never posing any meaningful threats outside of that isolated home run ball early on. Rice would add two more runs of their own in the fifth, courtesy of a double from Nathan Becker. The final two would cross in the sixth on a sac fly from Pierce Gallo and a wild pitch.

For the night, Rice outhit PVAMU 11-2 and the Rice pitching staff worked nine innings of one-run ball, striking out eight while allowing six total base runners, including one hit batter and one who reached via an error.

What it means | The price of victory

With the outcome essentially decided, the injury bug snuck up and bit Rice baseball again in the ninth inning. Max Johnson went down in a heap, stretching for a ball thrown off the bag before collapsing to the turf in pain. He had to be helped off the field by trainers and didn’t look to be able to put much weight on his leg.

Johnson had yet to register his first hit of the season but had earned the trust of the coaching staff for his improved competitiveness at the plate as well as his defense. His 10-pitch at bat against Stanford on Sunday that kept the Owls in it late drew positive reviews from head coach Jose Cruz Jr afterward.

“I thought Max had really good at bats,” Cruz said, singling out that crucial at bat. “I’m happy for that progress.”

If Johnson does indeed miss time, Rice will have to reshuffle the lineup again after settling in on Johnson as the first baseman for the time being. That would likely put Treyton Rank back on the infield and keep Ben Royo at shortstop. At some point, it’s a numbers game, and Rice is running out of options with the season just a few weeks old.

ON DECK | vs Hawaii (Fri-Mon)

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Rice Women’s Basketball falls to UTSA, skids into AAC Tournament

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Rice Women’s Basketball dropped its fifth consecutive contest, falling on the road to UTSA in the final game of the regular season.

Malia Fisher went supernova, delivering a Herculean performance in the final Rice women’s basketball game of the regular season. She scored the first points for the Owls. She scored the last points. Altogether she tallied 30 points — more than the next two closest players on the court combined — and 12 boards. It wasn’t enough, though.

Despite Fisher’s efforts, Rice women’s basketball was unable to overcome a poor shooting night as a whole. The 30 percent shooting performance was most noticeable in the second quarter when UTSA opened up a close game and earned its first double-digit advantage. Then came the third period in which Rice made just two shots (both from Fisher) and saw their deficit grow to as many as 19 points.

More: Roost Podcast — Spring Roundup

The team never gave up, fighting and clawing from that seemingly insurmountable hole to get the game back within reach. Fisher’s trio of successive baskets in the final minutes got Rice within three. The comeback would stop there, however, as UTSA knocked down a layup and a few ensuing foul shots to secure the win and hand loss its fifth consecutive loss in conference play.

Final Box | UTSA 60 – Rice 52

Key takeaway | Coming in cold

You want to be playing your best ball in March. It has to be the most overused cliche in college basketball. The Owls had better hope it’s a cliche and nothing more. Of the 14 teams in the American Conference, only one has been worse over the last three weeks of the regular season than Rice. Tulane (3-15 in the AACP) has lost eight consecutive games.

The standings are so tight. One more win and the Owls probably could have snuck into the final double-bye, earning the No. 4 Seed instead of the No. 10 seed. Instead, the low mark in the standings serves as a gut punch for a team that was picked to finish third in the preseason polls and swept East Carolina and USF, the preseason frontrunners.

That sets up a very intriguing week ahead. At their best, this team took down Tulsa, the AAC’s regular season champ. Rice is going to need to recapture that magic if they want to reshape the narrative on a season that has not gone according to plan.

Up Next: AAC Tournament

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