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Rice Basketball falters late, loses at home to Charlotte

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Rice basketball couldn’t hit the shots they needed to down the stretch, dropping a winnable home tilt against Charlotte and moving to 4-3 in C-USA play.

There are days when the ball bounces your way and there are days it rims out. On Saturday against Charlotte, that clang off the iron went against Rice Basketball, who fell at home in a back-and-forth game the Owls would probably like to have back.

Charlotte struck first, jumping out to a 4-0 lead, their largest advantage in a game they’d win by three, matching by an 8-4 advantage minutes later. Rice quickly countered, clambering out to a 15-11 lead at the midpoint of the first half, scoring six straight points. Neither team would go on a run longer than that at any point in the contest.

Last Time Out: Rice Basketball blanks ODU down the stretch, slams door at home

Rice was uninspiring from three, connecting on just 7-of-22 from beyond the arc. The Owls shot a modest 42 percent from the field and held their own on the boards. Charlotte’s advantage came in their scoring. The 49ers shot 53.3 percent in the game and 59.1 percent in the second half. That accuracy proved to be the difference, down to the final shot.

Carl Pierre, who had been lights-out from deep in his previous two outings, made three of his eight triples in the game, missing two threes in the final six seconds, either of which would have likely pushed the game into overtime. In a relatively evenly matched game, it served as a synopsis of the 40-minute slugfest: Charlotte made the plays when it counted. Rice did not.

Player Spotlight | Mylyjael Poteat

On a night when Rice wasn’t quite on the mark from long range, Mylyjael Poteat played a huge role in the paint. The up-and-coming center led all scorers with 15 points, knocking going 6-of-9 from the field and 3-0f-4 from the free throw line. Head coach Scott Pera has been extremely complementary of his growth all season, noting his growth from last season to this one.

“He’s played a lot more basketball. He’s getting used to the speed,” Pera said of Poteat. “We knew he was a really good player when we recruited him. Now he’s starting to really take advantage of his minutes.

Stat Corner | When it counts

It wasn’t a great afternoon shooting the basketball for Rice, but they shot well enough to have the chance to win the game late. It’s what happened in the final two minutes that made the difference and should serve as a teaching tool for a team that aspires to make some noise in the conference tournament.

With 1:52 on the clock, Poteat hit a layup to tie the game at 62. From that point onward, Rice did not hit another shot outside the paint. Their only points following Poteat’s layup was a dunk from Poteat with 18 seconds remaining. Travis Evee missed a layup. Chris Mullins was called for a charge and turned it over. Pierre missed from deep, twice. The great teams find a way to get at least one of those shots to go in. They had some good lucks. Things just didn’t work out in the last 90 seconds.

Final Box | Char 67 – Rice 64

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball went 1-1 on the homestand and will now return to the road next week. On Thursday they’ll pay a visit to Louisiana Tech before playing at Southern Miss on Saturday.

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Rice Basketball blanks ODU down the stretch in thrilling home win

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Rice basketball turned a close game into a runaway affair, blanking Old Dominion down the stretch and ending the game on a flawless 16-0 run.

Rice basketball went through a tough stretch in early January when the shots just weren’t falling. The Owls’ typical precision from three had turned sporadic as the team had to find ways to win in the paint and with their defense. Those days seem like a distant memory now that Rice has turned in consecutive days with laser-sharp accuracy from beyond three-point arc.

It’s only fitting that Rice opened their Thursday tilt with Old Dominion with consecutive threes. They would go on to hit seven of their first 14 shots from long-range. Rice had hit 50 percent or better on their triples in three games this to that point, still, Old Dominion found a way to hang around.

Last Time Out: Rice Basketball outshoots Marshall on the road\

Where the Monarchs came up short from distance they made up for inside. Their cuts to the basket and 20 points in the paint in the first half alone contributed to a close game that pinballed back and forth early on.

Old Dominion would take charge as the game progressed into the second half. The Monarchs were on fire from the field — until they weren’t. An eight-point ODU lead with 6:40 to play disappeared following a 1-for-10 stretch from the field. Rice mounted a 10-0 run with Carl Pierre delivering the go-ahead three with 2:51 on the clock. That run would extend to 16-0 as Rice ran away with it at home. Mylyjael Poteat was dominant down the stretch. Pierre couldn’t miss. Rice rolled.

“I guess we got to go look at the record books and see the last time we that kind of run to end the game,” head coach Scott Pera said following the win.

What they’re saying | Scott Pera

“This is the team I thought we had on November 14. And then some things went wrong. Chris tore a tendon… Quincy hurt his wrist and wasn’t right for 12 games maybe… and then we had 15 out of 16 guys get COVID including me. So we had a lot of bumps and through the bumps we stayed together. We got some wins. We had some good games, beat some good teams, lost to some good teams.

When league started – after we got through the North Texas situation and the COVID stuff – our guys were healthy, except for Chris, and they were through COVID. It’s the team I’d thought we’d have.” – Scott Pera

Player Spotlight | Carl Pierre

Pierre continues to campaign for the best transfer addition in Pera’s tenure at Rice. He tied the school record with eight three-pointers last week against Marshall. He followed that up with seven triples against Old Dominion, propelling the Rice offense and keeping pace with the surging Monarchs. He’s become a key cog in the Owls’ game plan each and every night. If other teams don’t make it a priority to keep him away from the basketball, this is probably going to keep happening.

Stat Corner | It’s how you finish

Defense was the focal point of the conversation in the Owls’ season-opening win over Pepperdine. Expectations for that side of the ball had risen compared to recent seasons, but few could have imagined the dazzling display Rice put forth to slam the door against Old Dominion on Thursday night.

“You can’t do better. I may coach another 500 games and it may never happen again,” Pera said of the team’s emphatic finish.

Rice held Old Dominion scoreless in the final 6:40 of regulation. The Monarchs missed their final 11 shots. Whether it was sheer exhaustion, careful spacing or a combination of both, Rice absolutely stymied what had been a dynamic offensive attack up until that moment.

Final Box | Rice 77 – ODU 69

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball closes out their two-game homestand on Saturday against Charlotte. After that they hit the road once again, paying a visit to Louisiana Tech and then Southern Miss to close out the month of January.

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Rice Basketball outshoots Marshall with career-night from Carl Pierre

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Rice basketball outshot Marshall behind a career-night from Carl Pierre, weathering a late run before pulling away late.

From start to finish, Rice basketball found ways to put the ball in the basket, typically from long range. The Owls had struggled to find a rhythm from three in recent games but snapped out of that funk with an emphatic barrage of triples to take down Marshall on the road.

Marshall took an early 4-3 lead but Rice would take over from there. Travis Evee and Carl Pierre would combine to hit 11 of the Owls’ 12 three-pointers, pushing the Rice lead to double-digits just after the midpoint of the first half.

Last Time Out: Rice Basketball falters down the stretch at WKU

Marshall wouldn’t go quietly. The Thundering Herd cut the Owls’ 12-point advantage midway through the second half to a 58-58 tie with 8:35 to play. Rice didn’t panic. A layup from Max Fiedler followed by a triplet of threes from Evee and Pierre gave Rice a fresh lead before the Owls pushed it back to double-digits with under two minutes to play.

“We weren’t perfect,” head coach Scott Pera. “It’s not always going to be perfect. But every time they made a run, we responded.”

The win moves Rice to 3-2 in conference play, trailing division leader Louisiana Tech by two games.

Player Spotlight | Carl Pierre

Pierre was lights out on Saturday, scoring a career-high 30 points and tying the school record with eight made three-pointers in the game. He always seemed to have an answer to a Marshall run, keeping the Owls at least one step ahead throughout the duration of the contest.

Stat Corner | Sharpshooters

Rice basketball combined two aspects of their three-point shooting game they hadn’t been able to sync up in quite some time. They hit more than eight threes for the first time since December 16 against Incarnate Word and topped 50 percent from three for the first time since December 4 against Jarvis Christian. The Owls would have happily taken the efficiency or the quantity. Getting both in the same game meant trouble for Marshall.

According to Rice, this marks the first time Rice has made at least 60 percent of its three-pointers in a game since Nov. 19, 2016 at Omaha.

Final Box | Rice 87 – Marshall 77

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball split their brief two game road trip against Western Kentucky and Marshall. Next weekend they’ll return home to Tudor Fieldhouse where they’ll host Old Dominion (Thursday) and Charlotte (Saturday).

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Rice Basketball: Dismal second-half dooms Owls at WKU

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Rice basketball played a great first half before all but disappearing after the break, falling to Western Kentucky on the road on Thursday night.

A tale of two halves might not even do true justice to just how disparate the two periods Rice basketball played against Western Kentucky on the road Thursday night. The Owls came out white-hot, converting on 51.5 percent of their shots from the field while draining seven threes. Then the bottom dropped out. Rice shot 29.6 percent in the second half and added just one triple to their eventual modest totals.

The Owls opponents actually shot worse from the floor in the second half than they had in the first. Where they found their edge was the charity stripe. Western Kentucky was 17-of-22 from the free throw line. Rice was 8-for-11. The Owls would go on to lose by nine.

Last Time Out : Rice Basketball pulls off thrilling upset of UAB at home

It’s not as if fouls determined this game, though. Rice basketball just wasn’t nearly as crisp after the halftime buzzer. Whether it was the right halftime adjustments made by Western Kentucky or a bad shooting slump for Rice — or both — the results were the same. A game that looked winnable at halftime slipped away.

The loss snuffs a short two-game winning streak that included perhaps the most impactful victory of head coach Scott Pera’s tenure at Rice, a home win over UAB. The Owls fall to 2-2 in Conference USA play.

Player Spotlight | Chris Mullins

Mullis has developed into a jack-of-all-trades for Rice basketball over the course of his career. Always known for his superb defensive ability, he added some well-timed buckets against the Hilltoppers. He tossed in a three-pointer to start off the second half on his way to a tie for the team-high in scoring with 13 points. He also added two rebounds and a steal.

Stat Corner | Don’t get dunked

Western Kentucky dunked seven times against Rice and scored 32 total points in the paint. 18 of those points came after halftime. They were a large part of what allowed Western Kentucky to run away with the game in the second half. The home team came out of the break on a 13-5 run. Six of those points came directly from dunks, the highest percentage shot you can take. Just three of them came from threes.

Three-pointers would help Western Kentucky maintain the lead down the stretch, but getting beat inside is what allowed the gap to manifest in the first place. The shots won’t fall every night. When they don’t, preventing easy buckets has to climb atop the priority list. Rice basketball didn’t do that very well on Thursday.

Final Box | WKU 80 – Rice 66

Up Next | Full Schedule

Rice basketball closes out their brief road trip on Saturday with a visit to Marshall. The Owls bested the Thundering Herd in the Conference USA Tournament the last time these two squads met. After that they’ll return home for games against Old Dominion and Charlotte.

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Rice Basketball slingshots upward following wild week

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Knocking off UAB was a big win for the Rice basketball program, but the Owls hope this wild week won’t be the end of their upward ascent.

Rice basketball is riding the tail end of one of a rollercoaster week that’s led them through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. They crested the peak of that eight-day stretch when they knocked off conference favorite UAB at Tudor Fieldhouse. That spectacular win will be remembered for quite some time at South Main, but those forty minutes were on Saturday were only part of what made the victory so special.

Rice Athletics staff scoured the record books to find a recent comparable. The best they could find? UAB was No. 38 in NET rankings entering their game against the Owls. Rice beat New Mexico, No. 32 in RPI, on the road in December of 2015. The Lobos would fall off down the stretch and finish a dismal 17-15 on the year. The last time Rice beat a team that was great from wire to wire? It might date back to their WAC days.

Given that context, the win might be even grander than it was initially assumed to be. Few could have seen it coming, especially with it coming a week removed from a 32 point drubbing at the hands of a North Texas squad that UAB had just defeated two days prior.

That loss was one of the most painful in recent memory. Rice has lost by 30 or more points to a conference foe on just one other occasion in the past three seasons. Oddly enough, that other blowout defeat came at the hands of Louisiana Tech in late February. One week later they upset Marshall in the Conference USA Tournament, arguably the best win of head coach Scott Pera’s tenure at the time.

What’s it like, going from the valley to the mountain in such a short time? “I’m tired. I’m emotionally spent,” head coach Scott Pera said after the game, still grinning before making his way to the locker room to celebrate.

By that point in the Zoom interview session, he’d already gushed about the significance of the win. He’d talked about what it meant to the program, to his players, to his staff. Praise had been allotted to everyone to which it was due. Pera was smiling, but he carried the weight of a season ravaged by COVID-19, complications which Pera has frequently referred to as the most grueling conditions he’s ever had to coach through.

That’s part of what made this win special. To fight through COVID-19 delays and struggle to get their feet back under themselves against North Texas was daunting. “That wasn’t us.” Pera said, defiantly, “That’s not who we are.”

And what exactly is that? Who is this new-look Rice basketball team that can topple the best the conference has to offer? And more importantly, what’s next?

Mentally (and emotionally) Pera and his team have already moved on. A tenuous stretch of some of the conference’s top teams awaits the Owls next weekend when they play at Western Kentucky and Marshall. That’s exactly where Pera hopes to go next.

His aim? “To compete for the upper half of this league,” he said. “To put ourselves in position on Tuesday, Wednesday in the conference tournament, maybe we don’t have to play.”

Who would have thought we’d be entertaining the possibility of a bye before the Conference USA Tournament a week removed from one of the most discouraging losses Pera has seen in his tenure as the Rice basketball head coach? Pera didn’t seem phased by the quick transition. Neither did guard Travis Evee.

“We said the whole summer we’re going to take the next step,” Evee said. “And I think today was a great win for us, a great win for the program and just shows all the work we put in.”

Perhaps that monumental win could indeed be a building block for the future. We’ll find out soon enough. Rice visits Western Kentucky on Thursday.

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