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Rice Basketball: Stout defense propels Owls past Pepperdine

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A stout defensive performance propelled Rice basketball over Pepperdine in decisive fashion to lift the Owls’ to 1-0 on their young season.

There wasn’t much about the early goings of the Rice basketball season opener against Pepperdine that seemed unusual. The Owls hit the first shot of the game, a triple from Carl Pierre, then knocked down two more threes in what appeared to be the beginnings of a back-and-forth game the likes of which had been played at Tudor Fieldhouse time and time again

In those games, Rice would shoot the lights out and try as hard as they could to muster enough stops on defense to hang on. Things seemed to be trending towards those same ‘ol Owls on Tuesday night, right up until the halftime buzzer. Then something shifted.

More: Rice Basketball Season Preview

With Chris Mullins — who head coach Scott Pera point-blank referred to as the team’s best defensive player — sidelined with a finger injury suffered early in the game, the Rice defense clamped down. The Owls allowed seven points in the first 10 minutes of the second half, rattling off a 28-7 run which turned a close game into a rout. They didn’t ease up much at all the rest of the way, limiting Pepperdine to a pedestrian 35.4 percent shooting from the field.

“We defended. We defended for 40 minutes and that was the difference,” Pera said emphatically after the game.

That refrain matches the chorus sung by Pera and his players last week during preseason media availability. Back at that time this team made it crystal clear they’d’ been exerting the majority of their efforts on getting better on that side of the court. Against Pepperdine, that attention to detail showed.

Again, Pera echoed “[Defense is] certainly the emphasis. Things become important when it’s on the front of your mind, and it’s on the front of our guys’ minds, it’s been since June.” And now, Rice has taken those ideas and made them a reality.

Rice shot 35.5 percent from three against Pepperdine. Preseason All-Conference honoree Quincy Olivari did not make any of his three attempts, battling through a wrist injury. It was a fine night from distance, but not one that this “Green Light U” squad is going to write home about. This is a team that can and has shot 40 percent, even 45 or 50 percent from three.

But even on a mediocre shooting night from three, this iteration of Rice basketball won by 19 points. When asked what this team might be capable of on a good shooting night from distance, Pera couldn’t suppress a grin, before letting out this subtle promise: “When we’re healthy and we’re really cooking, we will put on a show some nights.”

Player Spotlight | Noah Hutchins

Travis Evee led all Rice scorers with 24 points and six made three-pointers, but it was a surprise 13 minutes from Noah Hutchins that proved to be particularly intriguing. Hutchins only returned to practice this past week after recovering from an injury of his own, but he was thrust into meaningful minutes when Mullins went down.

Hutchins ended with a +4 plus/minus, largely because he happened to not be on the court during much of the Owls’ decisive second-half run, but he did settle things down when he entered, helping lead the charge on some key sequences. With Mullins’ status for the Houston game unknown, Rice could lead on Hutchins more in the near future. He acquitted himself well in his debut.

Final Box | Rice 82 – Pepperdine 63

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball will hit the road for a short trip across town on Friday when they’ll visit the University of Houston to take on the Top 15 Cougars at the Fertitta Center, where they narrowly escaped an upset at the hands of Hofstra on Tuesday. Tip-off for that game is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. It will be available for streaming on ESPN+. After that, Rice returns home on Tuesday, November 16 to host Southern.

Photo credit Maria Lysaker
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Rice Football runs out of gas in overtime loss to Charlotte

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Rice Football had a two-score lead in the second half, but couldn’t hang on, dropping another overtime heartbreaker against a conference foe.

The road has been kind to Rice football in recent years. Some of the Owls’ biggest wins — their upset of Marshall last season and their victory over UAB earlier this year — have come away from Rice Stadium. That road rally did not hold true on Saturday. After falling behind in the first half, the Owls took control in the second stanza before watching Charlotte punch back to force overtime and eventually win.

Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Owls overcome a shaky start

The opening sequence went almost as well as could have been expected for Rice football against Charlotte. The Owls’ defense forced a punt, giving the offense possession just beyond the midfield stripe. A couple of crisp passes from Jake Constantine and powerful runs from Ari Broussard and Jordan Myers pushed them inside the Charlotte 20 yard line.

Rice had already converted on fourth-and-one in the drive, extending their fourth-down conversion streak to 10 in a row. But on fourth-and-one from the 17-yard line, Rice trotted out the field goal unit and missed, again. The miss was the third consecutive kick that did not go through the uprights for the Rice special teams unit, with blame attributable to everyone from the snapper, to the holder to the kicker himself.

The Roost Podcast: Stay tuned for the game recap this week 

Second-guessing decisions that didn’t work out is the purest form of armchair quarterback that exists. And while it’s easy to say Rice should have done something else, it’s the decision-making process that’s puzzling.

If Rice had already shown themselves to be extremely adept at converting on fourth-and-short on that drive and they knew their special teams unit was struggling, was the 10-yard difference between the spot of that kick and the spot of their previous fourth-down conversion? Charlotte took over, drove the length of the field and took the lead.

If the short-yardage offense works and the kicking game doesn’t, perhaps that should impact how the Owls attack their opponents going forward. It noticeably did from that point onward.

What is the plan on special teams?

After that miss, Rice seemed more cognizant of their fourth-down decisions moving forward. The Owls would trust their offense rather than their kicking game on the next three similar decisions.

On fourth-and-six from the Charlotte 32, Jake Constantine found Jake Bailey for a 10-yard gain and a first down rather than lining up to try a 49-yard field goal.

The next drive, on fourth-and-three from the Charlotte 26, Constantine couldn’t hit Cedric Patterson on a fourth-down pass and Rice turned it over on doubts. The alternative would have been a 43-yard field goal.

Then, with 22-seconds before the halftime whistle, Constantine dropped a ball into the waiting arms of August Pitre who couldn’t hang on in the endzone as he hit the turf. Rice turned it over on downs rather than settle for a 47-yard field goal from the Charlotte 30.

It wouldn’t be fair to question the lack of fourth down aggression at the beginning of the game and then bemoan unsuccessful attempts from that point onward. Constantine’s pass to Pitre should have been held on to for what would have been the game-tying score. The process was fine. But that does beg one more question. How close does Rice need to be to trust their kicker?

Can Rice convert a 40-yard field goal if they have to? Right now, it’s hard to know for sure.

Rice has its running back

Ari Broussard has gotten more and more involved as the season has progressed, and for good reason. Broussard entered the game leading all Rice running backs with a healthy 4.3 yards per carry. He set a career-high on the ground two weeks ago when he rumbled for 65 yards on 16 carries. He almost outdid that mark on one drive against Charlotte, gaining 57 yards on one second-quarter drive.

Good blocking helps. Exhibit A: Broussard’s first career touchdown run.

But even though the line did seem to have a better day than they did last week against North Texas, Broussard kept finding a way to get the extra yard and fall forward. After carrying the Owls the bulk of the way, Rice turned to him with the game on the line in the fourth quarter. He delivered a 17-yard run. When he left the field, Rice was quickly forced to punt.

Broussard had 97 yards before halftime. He finished with 186 yards on 20 carries and two touchdown runs. Handing him the ball 30 times a game probably isn’t a viable long term solution, but it’s hard to imagine anyone else out-carrying him down the stretch. He’s been that good.

Running out of time

The transitive property does not apply to college football. Yet after seeing Charlotte get dusted in each of their two previous games, there was nothing leading into their game with Rice that made this challenge seem insurmountable. And coming on the heels of an overtime loss to North Texas, Rice needed this.

Sitting at 3-5 with four games to play, a bowl game berth was in reach. And although this wasn’t mathematically a make-or-break contest to get Rice to six wins, it sure felt like one.

Consistency has been the elephant in the room for Rice football this season. Resiliency has been their calling card. With their backs against the wall in need of a bounce-back once again, this team responded, but they couldn’t hang on. Now they have to win their final three games (vs WKU, at UTEP, vs Louisiana Tech) to reach the postseason. That’s a tall task, and now they’ve lost their margin of error.

Special teams needs a lot of work. The defense bent and eventually broke. The offense has to improve in the redzone, but has the horses (Constantine, Bailey, Broussard) to get the ball down the field with regularity. There’s a lot to do and Rice football is running out of time.

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Is the front seven heating up?

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Rice Basketball: Owls get past St. Edwards in opening exhibition

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Rice basketball started fast and led wire-to-wire in their victory over St. Edwards in the Owls’ lone exhibition contest before the 2021-2022 season.

Unlike the beginning of the prior season in which Rice basketball experienced a turnover of nearly its entire starting lineup and several other key members of the roster, the Owls enter the 2021-2022 season with largely the same faces on the hardwood of Tudor Fieldhouse. On Thursday night in front of their first home crowd since 2019, the team showcased their renewed depth and two new additions who are expected to become mainstays in the core rotation: Terrance McBride and Carl Pierre.

The Roost Podcast: Debriefing Rice football vs North Texas and C-USA news

Pierre drew the start and scored 10 points with five rebounds in 26 minutes of action. McBride came off the bench and added four points of his own in 17 minutes. Both were part of a constant stream of faces of the Owls’ bench.

The number of players head coach Scott Pera opts to utilize going forward will likely be a much smaller circle, but for Thursday’s exhibition, getting a good feel for all of his guys in live-action was the goal. “I was more concerned with minutes than I was with anything else,” Pera said.

“It’s a long season, a lot of games” Pierre echoed, “There’s a lot of wear and tear that comes with it. To be able to go deep into our bench and have good depth is going to be huge.”

Rice opened things up with a quick basket from Max Fiedler, who grabbed a feed inside from Pierre and laid it up for an easy two points. In the first five minutes, Rice would stretch that two-point lead to a 12-4 advantage, extending their edge to 21 points in the first half behind a balanced distribution of touches and scoring.

St. Edwards would chip away in the second half, cutting the sizable difference down to as few as six points during the early stages. Rice responded by going to the glass, pushing their lead back to 14 with a pair of dunks, three layups and a Quincy Olivari free throw. Rice would later close on a 10-0 run to secure the exhibition win.

Stat Corner | 49.2 percent

Given the free-flowing style of offense Rice basketball likes to play, the Owls’ aren’t going to concern themselves too much with field goal percentage on any given night. Rice averaged a 44.0 percent clip from the field last season, finishing at 50 percent or better in six of their 28 games.

Rice converted on 49.2 percent of their shots against St. Edwards, a game in which they played far more players than they will in the regular season. Combing high-value shots with high-value efficiency will be crucial if this team wants to hit its ceiling. This was a very positive start.

“I think we really stalled (in the second half) we didn’t shoot it great tonight,” Pera remarked afterwards. “I think if you check back, the nights we shot under under 30 percent from three. I don’t think we ever shot close to 50 (percent) from the floor and that’s been the difference in this team the whole preseason. The days in practice we haven’t shot well from three we’ve still shot close to 50 percent from the floor, because we’ve been better around the basket finishing and that’s going to be really, really important.”

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball officially opens its season next week at Tudor Fieldhouse with a game against Pepperdine on Tuesday, Nov. 9. That will be their only remaining tuneup before a trip across town to take on Houston, which opens the season ranked No. 15 in the AP Poll. Rice and Houston did not meet last season.

Photo credit Maria Lysaker
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Rice Football rally comes up short against North Texas

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Rice Football dropped a heartbreaker in overtime to North Texas, falling at home in what was a very winnable game for the Owls.

Nothing has come easy for Rice football this season so it shouldn’t really be all that surprising when the Owls found themselves locked in a four-quarter struggle against a North Texas team that hadn’t composed all that many impressive performances to this point in the season. Credit the Rice with this: when faced with the tall task of traveling 89 yard to force overtime, they rose to the challenge. Unfortunately, they couldn’t finish the game off the same way, falling at home to North Texas. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

Bring out the cart… again

On the Owls’ first drive of the game, Wiley Green took the shotgun snap and dropped back to pass. He was quickly greeted by a swarm of green, which sacked the newly-appointed Rice starter who was injured on the play. That marks the second time Green has left a game with an injury this year and the third game in which Rice has lost a starter during the course of the contest.

Injuries happen in college football. No team is immune. But when it comes to the quarterback position at Rice, the injury luck (or lack thereof) has gotten out of hand. Green was also knocked out of the game against Texas earlier this year. Luke McCaffrey also left that game with an injury. Then Jake Constantine, who took over for both following the Texas game, was hurt midway through the Owls’ game against UTSA.

The Roost Podcast: Stay tuned for the game recap this week 

That’s FOUR quarterbacks injured to the point they had to leave the game over the course of eight games. The vast majority of teams across the country won’t lose one starting quarterback to an injury this season. Some will get unlucky and lose two. Rice has doubled that. And it’s not the first season this team has had to improvise at the most important position on the field.

Getting any sort of offensive rhythm established when you’re forced to swap out the key cog so repetitively can’t be easy. If nothing else, Rice football has had plenty of practice.

The ugliest 12-minute drive of all time?

If Rice were to submit some game film as proof of their upward ascent, it’s hard to imagine more than a snap or two from this game against North Texas would make the highlight reel. Somehow, Rice managed to run 12 consecutive plays inside the redzone and walk away with just three points. The Owls spent seven minutes within striking distance of the endzone after being handed multiple fresh starts via personal fouls called on the North Texas defense.

The offensive line was not having their best day and was flagged for holding twice in that redzone sequence. It seemed to become problematic enough that Rice nearly grounded the ball entirely, looking to take the points and tie the game rather than risk being knocked out of field goal range by sack or penalty.

North Texas responding to the 19-play, 12:07 Rice drive with a nine-play, 1:52 touchdown drive of their own further added to the frustrations of failing to capitalize on so many tries within a stone’s throw of the endzone. That entire sequence underscored a sloppy day for both sides of the ball.

Build the whole plane out of fourth down

There’s probably a more impactful name than the “it” factor, but that elusive clutch skill is something Rice has been looking to nurture for several years now. They caught lightning in a bottle by converting on five consecutive fourth down tries against UAB. Then they kept it going, converting on fourth down twice against North Texas. They’ve now converted six seven eight NINE consecutive fourth down attempts. And two of those came via long pass plays rather than the Owls’ typical jumbo package.

Putting the ball in the endzone without as many heart-stopping moments is the optimal solution, but if you aren’t perfect on that front, being able to get one yard when you need it most is a skill worth having in your toolbelt.

Waiting for the Rice offense to show up in any form or fashion has been a frustration for some time. If it takes fourth down to get things in gear, so beat it. Yes, Rice needs to get to the point where it does take a miraculous streak of do-or-die moments, but it’s better to find messy offensive success than no success at all.

Pinball season bounces on

It’s starting to get exhausting. The sheer erratic nature of the 2021 Rice football team doesn’t make any sense. A week removed from the most significant victory over a C-USA West opponent under head coach Mike Bloomgren’s watch, the Owls lost to a listless North Texas squad that hadn’t beaten an FBS opponent since a two-point win over UTEP to close out the 2020 regular season. The win previous to that? It was over Rice.

If Rice could congeal its good days and bad days, the middle-of-the-road option might very well have a similar record to the 3-5 line the Owls currently hold in the standings. Granted, that more mellow iteration probably doesn’t beat UAB, but probably ought to have beaten North Texas.

On the positive side, if you’re going to have the lows, complimenting them with massive road upsets over conference foes is quite possibly the “best-case scenario” given the circumstances. On the other hand, a team with enough talent to win those big games has enough talent to win the other ones too. They just haven’t been able to string together any sort of consistency.

A bowl game is well within reach. Knowing what this team is capable of makes it seem decidedly foolish to count them out at this juncture. But they need to find a way to smooth out this rocky road or weight the die they keep rolling. The upside they forgo with disappointing games like Saturday is far too great.

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Penalties compound poor play

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Rice Football: Owls stun UAB in first-ever trip to Protective Stadium

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Rice Football bounced back with a vengeance, knocking off UAB on the road in the Owls’ most complete performance of the season.

Empowered by a productive week of practice and the excitement of a move to the AAC, Rice football came out ready to play against UAB on Saturday. Despite entering the game as heavy underdogs, the Owls traded blows with the Blazers, never once looking overwhelmed or outmatched.

For all the productive plays created by the UAB offense and defense, something in this game was abundantly clear. Rice wanted this one. Not only did they play with intensity, their quality of play matched their level of desire. For the second year in a row, Rice has upset one of Conference USA’s best. And they’ve pulled off both wins away from home. Here are a few immediate reactions from the game:

As fast as fast can be

The X-factor for Rice football in this week’s game preview was extremely straightforward: start fast. From the moment the ball was kicked into the waiting arms of Juma Otoviano, Rice did exactly that.

Special teams started fast. Otoviano burst through the coverage team and took the ball out to the 50-yard line.

The offense started fast. Rice converted two fourth downs, marching the remaining 50 yards down the field to score the opening touchdown and put Rice up 7-0. They’d follow that up with a second touchdown drive on the ensuing possession to take a 13-0 lead.

The defense started fast. Gabe Taylor forced a fumble on UAB’s first offensive play. Antonio Montero recovered, setting the offense up for another scoring drive.

Rice goes Green

It’s been quite a career for Rice quarterback Wiley Green. Given the bench following a rough showing against Arkansas then injured in the loss to Texas, Green surprisingly resurfaced this week when Jake Constantine was unable to play. Dropped down the depth chart multiple times in his Rice career, Green’s shortcomings have always been decision-based rather than ability-based. He can make the plays, and he showcased that ability on Saturday.

Green wasn’t perfect. He was credited with a fumble on a bang-bang play where it appeared he attempted to hold back a throw he had already committed to, leading to the fumble ruling rather than an incomplete pass. Nevertheless, he bounced back and marched Rice up and down the field, again and again.

This quarterback job still belongs to Constantine when he’s ready. But Green’s big day gave proof to the coaching staff’s longstanding belief that the offense didn’t need herculean playmakers to work. It just needed execution. Now, to Green’s credit, he made some big plays like this one:

Green finished the game 17-for-22, throwing for 205 yards and three touchdowns. He completed 77 percent of his passes, the best mark of his career in any game in which he attempted at least seven passes. Green proved this offense can work, and he did it against one of the best defenses in Conference USA.

Defensive absences noticed, but overcome

Rice managed to get by with a largely depleted secondary during the 2020 season, in part because they had remarkable healthy among the front seven. This year, more or less every level of the defense has suffered an important injury. De’Braylon Carroll was lost for the season during the summer. Rice was without him, Kenneth Orji and Trey Schuman against UAB.

Treshawn Chamberlain, who was one of the healthy cogs in that 2020 defense, missed this game. So too did George Nyakwol. Whether it was those specific absent pieces that were the ones Rice couldn’t afford to lose or the entire defense has taken a step back from where it was last season, this unit isn’t nearly as effective as it once was.

The Roost Podcast: Stay tuned for the game recap this week 

Big plays and turnovers are important, but right now Rice needs to improve on things like tackling and gap integrity. It’s not as if those missing men are the only ones capable of wrapping up. Rice has capable players. They just need to start executing. The Owls are allowing their opponents way too many “easy” yards and setting themselves up for failure.

Fortunately for Rice, the tackling improved as the game progressed. That played a huge role in the Owls’ retaking the lead early and controlling the game into the second half. For the most part, they kept the play in front of them. Well-timed blitzes and solid coverage made UAB work for every yard the rest of the way.

Not consistent, but resilient

The perils of last week’s trip to San Antonio seemed lightyears away to the Rice football players and staff on Saturday afternoon at Protective Stadium. In the wake of what was certainly one of the most frustrating and disappointing losses of Mike Bloomgren’s tenure, the Owls once more found a way to write their own history.

After an 0-3 start, Rice bounced back with three consecutive victories. The UTSA loss was crushing, but this is still a team that’s won 6 of their last 10 conference games — 7 out of 11 now. That included the upset of No. 15 Marshall and now a win over C-USA conference favorite UAB, both of which took place outside the confines of Rice Stadium.

The concern after the rough start and shutout losses to Texas and UTSA was legitimate. But the discovery of quarterback Jake Constantine and the proof the team can still win without him when they play together proved even more meaningful. Rice hasn’t ironed out all the kinks, but they’ve proven they can win, and win big games. And after all the low points over the last few years, winning is all that really matters.

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Point proven

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