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The Roost Podcast | Ep 134 Rice Football vs UTSA Recap

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Rice football would soon forget a soggy, sad loss to UTSA, but rain or shy, The Roost Podcast is here to break down the entire affair.

For the third time this season, Rice football had its starting quarterback knocked out of a game in the first half. For the third time this season, Rice lost that game. Wiley Green has the misfortune of fulfilling that statistic twice, then time on Senior Day against Conference USA juggernaut UTSA. The Owls lost and have one game remaining in the regular season. What do we make about the program right now?

You can find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 134.

Episode Notes

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Rice Football vs UTSA game recap

  • Another scout team quarterback makes his Rice football debut
  • Making sense of the offense, regardless of who is under center
  • Owls post an unbelievably bad rushing performance
  • Defense holds off Harris through the air, but how much is true progress?
  • How much fault can be assigned to injuries? How much to coaching?
  • What does Rice football need to do to reach a bowl game?

Where can you find us?

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Rice Basketball rallies from 17 down, tops Houston Christian

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Rice basketball started slow, but caught fire late, securing a perfect 3-0 weekend at home with a Monday night win over Houston Christian.

It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. At least that’s how the old adage is supposed to go. right? It was indeed a fitting description of how Rice basketball faired against Houston Christian in the final game of the Owl Invitational. Already 2-0 on the weekend, it took the full 40 minutes for the Owls to complete the weekend sweep on Monday Night.

Things couldn’t have started much worse. HCU knocked down four threes in the first five minutes of regulation, jumping out to an 11-point lead with Rice registering just three early points via a three from Quincy Olivari. HCU would lead by as many as 17 points in the first half, entering the break at exactly that margin.

At halftime, Rice basketball head coach Scott Pera told his team to break up the second half into four-minute chunks up to the media timeouts. “I had my grad assistant tell me the score of each four-minute segment,” Pera said. “And I remember the first one clearly being 12 to 2.”

More: Rice Basketball Season Preview

Respond they did. Rice didn’t slow down from the torrid pace with which they started the second half. They also had an 8-0 run a little bit later. Despite HCU knocking down 13 three-pointers and the Owls shooting a mediocre 25 percent from long-range themselves, the Owls battled back.

Finally, with 6:51 left on the clock, Rice basketball took its first lead of the night. Mekhi Mason did the honors, slashing through the lane for a basket and draining the subsequent free throw. Rice would surrender the lead briefly on the following possession but retake it immediately afterward, stretching it to double digits and holding on to remain undefeated at home.

Player Spotlight | Mekhi Mason

Welcome to South Main, Mekhi Mason. The highly-anticipated freshman scored 11 against Georgia Southern on Friday, the previous highwater mark of his young now six-game career. He’d made at least one three in every game to this point and he’d shot fairly well from the floor as a whole, but he hadn’t really had a breakthrough game, not yet.

That changed on Monday. With his team trailing in need of a spark, Mason took over. He led all scorers with 25 points, knocking down 4-of-7 from three with an additional three assists, to boot. He was lights out from the floor, missing just four of his 13 shots.

“He’s a talented, talented you man. I’m really happy for him,” Pera said. “He really picked us up.”

Final Box | Rice 76 – HCU 67

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball has one final game in the month of November before turning the page to the December slate. They’ll host Prairie View A&M on Wednesday, Nov. 20, giving the team an extended Thanksgiving Break.

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Rice Basketball closes strong, dispatches Western Michigan at home

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Rice basketball caught fire late, taking down Western Michigan to stay perfect at the Owl Invitational with one game still to play.

A day after a furious second half explosion to take down Georgia Southern, Rice basketball faced an early test against Western Michigan in their second game of the Owl Invitation at Tudor Fieldhouse. Travis Evee opened the scoring with a three-pointer, but Western Michigan would spend the majority of the first half in front, leading by as many as eight points.

The lead would never stretch farther than that. Cam Sheffield hit a couple of baskets to get Rice back into the game. The two sides traded blows for a few more minutes before Rice closed the half on an 8-0 run in the final 28 seconds, with Quincy Olivari leveling the score with a triple of his own at the buzzer.

More: Rice Basketball Season Preview

Rice would jump out in front by four on a three from Travis Evee shortly after the break, but the lead would be short-lived. Western Michigan rallied, this time stretching their advantage to nine points at the midpoint of the half. The Owls would lead again until the clock went under 3:00 and Olivari drained another three-ball to put the home team up by one.

From then, Travis Evee put on a clinic at the charity stripe, knocking down his free throws and sending Rice home with a win.

Player Spotlight | Travis Evee

Rice basketball had a few big performances that helped propel them to a win on Saturday, but it was the clutch shooting of Evee down the stretch that stole the show. He was 10-of-12 from the line on the afternoon, finishing a pristine 9-of-9 in the final three minutes, making it impossible for Western Michigan to mount a comeback. He just didn’t miss, including a three-pointer interspersed between the free throws to put the gam out of reach for good.

Final Box | Rice 96 – WMU 88

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball is two games into the Owl Invitational. They’ll finish on Monday against Houston Christian. After that, the Owls have another home game on deck, this time against Prairie View A&M on Nov. 30.

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Doom and Gloom: Rice Football falls to UTSA rain-soaked Senior Day

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Rice Football never got hot on a cold and gloomy Senior Day, falling at home to UTSA in their final home game of the season.

On a cold and rainy Saturday morning, Rice football froze up. Injuries and missed opportunities stifled a Rice team that has yet to complete a complete four-quarter performance this season, despite notching five victories along the way. They did not get their sixth win on Saturday, falling to UTSA in a one-sided result on Senior Day. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

From bad to worse

On paper, the weather seemed to be something that should work in favor of the Owls, who entered their final home game of the season with a slew of injuries at several key positions. Starting quarterback TJ McMahon was unable to go, as were the Owls’ top four corners: Jordan Dunbar, Sean Fresch, Lamont Narcisse and Jojo Jean.

From a personnel standpoint, an ugly game with lot of running and field position battles was much preferred to an aerial back-and-forth against the Roadrunners and star quarterback Frank Harris.

Rice did get an ugly game, but the weather wasn’t at fault.

Quarterback Wiley Green was injured on the Owls’ second possession, getting blasted from behind and fumbling in the process. UTSA recovered and scored their second-consecutive touchdown on as many plays.

The Owls’ defense opened the game three-and-out and Green hit Bradley Rozner on a slant to get Rice out of the shadow of their own endzone. Then the drive stalled on fourth and one, Rice punted, and the tumultuous sequence of injuries and turnovers commenced.

Turnovers fall, but it’s not enough

At some point, the turnovers that have plagued Rice football this season were going to stop, or at the very least, they would slow down. Despite the Owls’ issues with protecting the football, tipped passes and fumbles from a myriad of different players seemed unlikely to persist forever. Despite the injuries and bad weather, Rice did a good job protecting the football against UTSA.

In their first 10 games, Rice won the turnover battle twice. They were +5 against McNeese and +1 against UAB. They won both games. Against FBS opponents, Rice hadn’t forced more than two turnovers in a game this season whereas they’d produced at least three giveaways four times.

The Roost Podcast: Stay tuned for the game recap this week – Rice Football vs UTSA

Against UTSA, Rice forced two turnovers. George Nykawol knocked the ball out himself and Myron Morrison made a play in coverage to intercept Frank Harris.

The Owls’ first turnover on offense came on a play in which Green was injured, with pressure coming unblocked off the edge. It’s not excusable by any means, but it wasn’t a lapse by a ballcarrier or decision-maker, the Achilles’ heel of the offense to this point. That came the very next drive when Kobie Campbell put the ball on the deck.

The third turnover came on an errant pass from Itraish, who was subsequently benched for true freshman AJ Padgett. That gave Rice a minus differential in the turnover margin once again.

It all comes down to quarterback, again

Watching Green leave with an injury with TJ McMahon standing on the sideline, already ruled out, was a gut punch for a Rice offense that has taken such large strides this season. Trailing at home with a backup, backup quarterback, there were two plays that highlighted what could have been.

With Shawqi Itraish at quarterback early in the second quarter and Rice trailing 21-0, Isaiah Esdale burst through double coverage on the far side of the field. He had seven yards on both defenders and plenty of green grass in front of him. It was a walk in touchdown. Itraish underthrew all three players, incomplete. Rice got no points on the drive.

Following a turnover by the Roadrunners shortly after, Rice dialed up a double reverse pass. The ball was tossed back to Itraish who had Bradley Rozner wide open down the field. He couldn’t release the ball quick enough, throwing it into the ground. Once more, no points.

It’s not all Itraish’s fault, but these two moments do highlight the challenges of calling an offense in the rain with your third string redshirt freshman quarterback at the controls. It’s hard. And you can’t miss your opportunities. On Saturday, Rice did and the result was, unfortunately, predictable.

The silver lining, if there was one, was an intriguing debut by true freshman AJ Padgett. He connected on a 43-yard touchdown pass to Bradley Rozner on fourth down in the fourth quarter. Could he see action in the season finale against UTSA? At this point, anything seems feasible.

One more?

As soon as the clock hit zero at Rice Stadium a few weeks ago, securing an upset for the visiting Charlotte 49ers, it seemed more likely than not that the Owls would find themselves here.

Defeating Western Kentucky or UTSA didn’t seem completely far-fetched, but the wiggle-room in the Owls’ search for six wins had evaporated. They needed to win one of their final three to reach that mark, but that stretch included games against the top three teams in the standings.

Now, it all comes down to this. Rice sits at 5-6, losers of back-to-back games for the first time this season. They travel to North Texas next weekend, in need of that final elusive win to clinch bowl eligibility for the first time since 2014.

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Death, Taxes, Wiley Green and injuries

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Rice Basketball Roundup: MBB over GA Southern, WBB over Pacific

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Both Rice basketball teams were in action on Friday. Here’s a brief rundown of how the men and women faired and what’s next for both.

Rice Basketball

Rice basketball still has early season kinks to work through but got back in the win column on Friday with a hard-fought victory against Georgia Southern.

With defense still very much a work in progress, anything is possible. What might have been a comfortable home-court advantage for Rice basketball did not last on Friday night against Georgia Southern. The Owls watched an eight-point lead vanish in the moments before halftime, ceding a 9-0 run by the visitors to fall behind 48-47 at the break.

As the three-pointing shooting started to slow in the second half, Rice turned to Max Fiedler in the post. He was extremely effective, making his shots count and scoring all of his nine points in the second half. Rice retook the lead and stretched it to as many as 17 points, hanging on to win a wild one at home.

Final Box | Rice 88 – Georgia So. 71

Key takeaway | The shots will start falling

At some point, the shots were going to start falling. Off nights from the field are an unfortunate cost of doing business for a team that relies on the three-ball as much as Rice basketball does. That said, nights like Friday serve as a reminder that any night can be a good shooting night.

Rice hit seven of their first 10 three and 10-of-23 from distance for the evening. Their previous high in triples in a game this year had been 14 against St. Thomas. Their high for the entirety of last season was 15 against Houston Baptist. If that’s any indication, even better nights from distance are coming and a good (not quite great) night at the office was enough to get the win.

Up Next: vs Western Michigan – Saturday, Nov. 19 at 5:00 p.m.

Rice Women's Basketball

Rice women’s basketball kept their perfect start to the season rolling with another road win, this time over Pacific in a relatively comfortable fashion.

Not long after a double-digit road win over Saint Mary’s, Rice women’s basketball took to the court at Pacific a few days later and produced a similar result. The Owls jumped out to an early lead behind a strong defensive showing, holding Pacific to 25 percent shooting from the floor in the first quarter. That enabled Rice to amass a 10-point lead at the break.

It wouldn’t be easy, though. Rice held serve in the third quarter, but Pacific came alive in the final frame. They outscore the Owls 28-24 in the fourth, making 5-of-9 from deep, but it wouldn’t be enough. Rice would make the defensive stands they needed to and hit their free throws, moving to 4-0 on the season with the win.

Final Box | Rice 89 – Pacific 79

Key takeaway | The defense is coming

Following the Owls’ season-opening game against SFA, coach Edmonds mentioned she’d hoped for a better defensive showing, giving up 77 points was too much in her highest. The team responded by cutting their points against total to 69 (vs Abilene Christian), then to 64 (at St. Mary’s).

The Owls were trending that way after holding their foes to 34 points in the first half, but a second-half barrage pushed Pacific’s final total to 79 points, several points of which came in catch-up mode with the Owls shooting free throws.

That total was never going to continue to fall forever, but it’s pretty clear the message was received. The defense has been much better, particularly in key moments. And they’re probably not done improving that facet of their game just yet either.

Up Next: at Texas Southern – Wednesday, Nov. 23 at 2:00 p.m.

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