The source for Rice sports news

Rice Basketball hangs on late to beat FIU

By

Rice basketball hung around against FIU through the first half but caught fire late to claim an important road victory.

For nearly 30 minutes of action, there was hardly any separation on the court between Rice basketball and their Saturday night host, FIU. Even after Rice opened the game on an 8-0 run, FIU quickly gained its footing and brought the game back near level. From that point, the Owls and Panthers were locked in a close game, waiting for someone on either side to pull their team away.

The first crack appeared when Quincy Olivari and Cameron Sheffield made three-pointers on consecutive trips down the court to push the Rice lead to eight points. From there, Rice would slowly pull away, stretching their lead to double-digits. FIU would get back within one score late, but Rice made their free throws and got a clutch steal from Sheffield to seal the game.

Rice knocked down 14 threes in drove on their way to the big road win, but they also took advantage of a notable edge on the boards, outrebounding FIU 37-26 with 11 offensive rebounds in the process.

Final Box | Rice 85 – FIU 78

Key takeaway |  Gritting out a road win

Rice basketball has six games left in the regular season. Four of those are scheduled to be played at Tudor Fieldhouse. Playing at home doesn’t lessen the strength of a tough opponent, but it undeniably matters in college basketball. The Owls are 10-4 at home this season and 6-5 on the road. It’s also significant considering where Rice is in the standings.

By virtue of their victory over FIU, Rice is fifth in Conference USA. That’s right on the line where the Owls need to be if they’re going to secure a bye in the first round of the conference tournament. Holding steady right where they are right now might be good enough, even if they don’t get any herculean efforts down the stretch.

Rice is a half-game behind Middle Tennesee, who currently sits one spot ahead of Rice in the standings. The Blue Raiders hold the tiebreaker, but a strong push down the stretch might still hold some upward mobility for the Owls. Regardless of what happens in the next three weeks, beating FIU on Saturday enables these hypotheticals to continue.

Up Next: vs UTSA – Thursday, Feb. 16 at 7:00 p.m.

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

Recent Posts

Bellamy, Fisher lead Rice Women’s Basketball past FIU at home

By

Rice women’s basketball completed a weekend sweep of Florida schools, besting FIU at home on Saturday.

Still without leading scorer Ashlee Austin on the court, Rice women’s basketball didn’t have much trouble notching their second straight home victory. After a low-scoring opening quarter, Rice heated up quickly with a 24-outburst in the second frame, taking an eight-point lead into halftime.

India Bellamy and Malia Fisher were instrumental in helping Rice build their initial lead and then extending it to as many as 15 points in the second half. FIU would cut the margin back down to five points at the midpoint of the fourth quarter, but a layup from Bellamy and a three from Fisher pushed the Rice advantage quickly back to double-digits and helped secure the victory.

Rice has now won back-to-back games and sits at fourth in the conference standings with six games remaining in the regular season.

Final Box | Rice 67 – FIU 58

Key takeaway | Bellamy block party

Bellamy finished one point shy of tying a career-high in points, but it was her defense that was perhaps even more significant on Saturday afternoon. She led the team in defensive rebounds (five) and finished with four blocked shots, that’s a lot. For reference, Rice has only exceeded that total as a team on three occasions this year (they had five total against Sam Houston, WKU and their prior game against FIU).

“I’m really proud of India, her efforts are through the roof, the way that she has just been grinding, and even in those four-point games and five-point games, she was still impacting our team,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said. “But obviously the offensive side of the ball, we really need it right now and she’s doing a great job at stepping up where the team needs her the most.”

Up Next: at UTSA – Thursday, Feb. 16 at 7:00 p.m.

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

Recent Posts

Rice Women’s Basketball runs away from FAU late

By

Rice women’s basketball took care of business at home, downing FAU in runaway fashion at Tudor Fieldhouse.

Just past the midpoint of conference play, Rice women’s basketball needed to find a way to take care of home court against a 5-8 FAU squad on Thursday night. It was the road Owls who delivered the first blow, though, jumping out to an 8-0 run before Rice was able to find the scoreboard.

Rice battled back quickly, finishing the first quarter on a 22-6 run and held serve in the second frame, taking a two-point lead into the half. It was the third quarter when Rice made its’ move, slowly building up from a 36-36 tie to an 11-point lead as the fourth quarter began. Then the hometown team really started to pour it on.

The Owls emptied the benches, turning a modest double-digit lead into a 20-plus-point shellacking. 12 different Rice players saw action, including minutes for Haylee Swayzee, Ashlyn Zhang and Fatou Samb, the three of which had combined to play 88 total minutes this season. It was officially cleanup time in the most dominant conference win for Rice women’s basketball this season

“It was amazing, it was fun. It makes basketball fun when you get to see the people you’re with 24/7 go in the games and play,” forward India Bellamy said. “It was also relaxing not to be stressed out.”

Final Box | Rice 85 – FAU 64

Key takeaway | Starting lineup shakeup

Rice women’s basketball has largely maintained the same starting five throughout the season. Once Maya Bokunewicz went down in the second game of the season it’s been Ashlee Austin, Katelyn Crosthwait, Malia Fisher, Destiny Jackson and Trinity Gooden taking the court as the first five night in and night out. That’s not how the Owls lined up on Thursday night.

Crosthwait wasn’t in the starting lineup and entered the game in the second quarter. Austin did not play at all. When asked for clarification on those decisions, head coach Lindsay Edmonds called it a “family matter” that she wanted to keep inside the locker room.

“I said it was going to be about what people showed me in practice. That was where the mixups kinda came from,” Edmonds said, referring to a challenge she gave the team last week. She added Austin is not injured and her availability going forward would depend on “what’s shown on the court.”

Being without their leading scorer didn’t seem to phase the Owls on the court, though. Rice scored 85 points, their highest against a conference opponent this season, getting big contributions off the bench from India Belammay and Jazzy Owens-Barnett.

Up Next: vs FIU – Saturday, Feb. 11 at 1:00 p.m.

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

Recent Posts

Rice Basketball runs out of time against against FAU

By

Rice basketball hangs around but can’t do more than that, falling to league-leading FAU on the road, their fourth straight defeat.

Another slow start accompanied Rice basketball to the Sunshine State on Thursday night. Rice fell behind against FAU 16-8, opening the game shooting a miserable 23 percent from the floor. They would eventually get the shots to start falling, but not before FAU ripped off a 15-3 run to push their advantage to 13 points midway through the first half.

Down by double-digits against the best team in the conference, Rice began its comeback. Quincy Olivari delivered back-to-back threes to get things going. Mekhi Mason closed the half with his first triple of the contest, shrinking the FAU lead to six.

Rice would get within five a few times in the second half but never got closer. The FAU lead would ping-pong back and forth between five and 10, but Rice couldn’t hit that next shot and make it a one-possession game. Far too often those missed threes turned into fast break points for the other side before Rice, eventually, ran out of time.

Final Box | FAU 91 – Rice 80

Key takeaway | Making the grade

After a tough stretch that featured three consecutive losses, Rice basketball head coach Scott Pera made it clear his team needed to play what he termed their “A-game” if they were going to win games in a challenging conference. It was going to take that good of a game and then some if the Owls were going to walk into Boca Raton and upset the conference frontrunners.

Rice did not pull off the upset, but they carried themselves much more like a team that belonged on the same court as the other Owls than they had in the past few games. Pera’s squad heard the message. While it might not have been an A-game, it was at least a B-minus.

There are no more victories. Rice basketball is running out of time. But if they’re going to win a few more down the stretch, playing at this level (41 percent from three, 85 percent from the line) is a prerequisite. Limiting the offensive boards and playing stronger in the paint will go a long way toward that achieving those ends.

Up Next: at FIU – Saturday, Feb. 11 at 6:00 p.m.

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

Recent Posts

Free throw woes doom Rice Basketball vs North Texas

By

Rice basketball started strong but was unable to rally from a first-half deficit, falling to North Texas at Tudor Fieldhouse on Saturday.

Saturday night’s rematch between Rice basketball and North Texas had all the makings of a thrilling affair right up until Max Fiedler temporarily halted the contest with a dunk that turned off the shot clock. After some deliberation, the opposite shot clock was turned off and the game resumed, complete with a 10-second countdown from the PA announcer to simulate the clock that was no longer illuminated.

North Texas was unphased. Rice looked flustered. Rice led by two when the clock turned off. North Texas responded with a 16-2 run, ultimately outscoring Rice 21-8 in the remainder of the half.

“I think that we kinda stopped communicating a little bit and lapsed on defense for a few minutes,” guard Travis Evee said of the technical interruption caused by the clock, which was restored to order before the start of the second half.

With the clock restored, Rice opened the half on a 13-6 run, cutting the North Texas lead to three. That was as close as they were able to get. Rice managed to shoot reasonably well (48.1 percent in the second half, 47.1 percent for the game) but was unable to retake the lead. “They had to deal with it too,” head coach Scott Pera said. “They dealt with it better than us.”

Rice entered Saturday as one of the best free throw shooting teams in the conference but would miss five in a row in the second half including the front end of a double-double twice in that span. They shot 55.6 percent on the night, nearly 20 points worse than their season average.

“To win these games, you’ve got to play your A-game. In this league, if you don’t play your A-game you’re not going to win, especially against North Texas,” Pera said. “We played about our C-plus team, and that’s not enough.”

Final Box | North Texas 74 – Rice 64

Key takeaway | Eliminating the lulls

Aside from a blowout loss to UAB, Rice basketball has been in a close ball game late in the second half just about every time they’ve taken the court. It’s impossible for each of the games to break the right way, but it certainly feels like the bounces haven’t favored the Owls this weekend.

On Thursday, Rice trailed by 24 against Louisiana Tech before falling to take the lead late, before losing by eight. The deficit didn’t get quite that big on Saturday against North Texas, but Rice had their chances to turn a 13-point deficit into a single-shot affair, they were unable to do so, primarily because of an ice-cold 0-for-5 streak at the free throw line in the middle of the second half.

If Rice can find a way to avoid falling behind by double-digits with regularity, some of these nailbiters might just turn into less stressful wins. Perfection isn’t a realistic expectation, but finding a way to maintain 40 minutes of competitive play has to be a focal point because the tough stretches have made even the competitive games feel like they require Herculean efforts to win, resulting in losses like this.

Up Next: at Florida Atlantic – Thursday, Feb. 9 at 6:00 p.m.

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

Recent Posts