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Rice Basketball Recruiting: Owls add transfer Travis Evee from VMI

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Rice basketball hit the Transfer Portal hard this spring, adding former VMI point guard Travis Evee to their roster. He’ll sit one season prior to being eligible for the Owls.

Attrition struck the Rice basketball roster hard this offseason, leaving several holes that need to be filled. Fortunately for the Owls, reinforcements are on the way. Although he won’t suit up for Rice until the 2021-2022 season, incoming transfer Travis Evee has high hopes for his time at South Main.

A transfer from VMI, Evee committed to the Owls in the midst of the coronavirus lockdown. He has yet to step foot on campus or meet the coaching staff in person, obstacles he wouldn’t let stand in the way of finding his way to what he called “the best place for me.”

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

The external environment for his decision was far from ideal, but he says he feels confident he made the right choice. Ultimately it came down to relationships. Head coach Scott Pera provided a level of comfort that made Evee confident he was ready to head to Texas.

“I felt Rice was a great place where I can be challenged academically and athletically,” Evee said.

Evee was the Southern Conference Freshman of the Year this past season, leading VMI with 12.6 points per game. He shot 36.2 percent from three, building upon a strong track record of success from deep. Evee set a single-season record in high school with 104 made three-pointers. Shooting is his strong suit, making him a perfect fit for what Pera wants to build at Rice.

On the court, Evee prides himself as being a “team first” player who promises to bring a winning attitude to South Main. Rice basketball will need a facilitator in the future with the graduation of Ako Adams. As soon as he’s able, Evee is ready to step in and fill that role at Rice.

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Rice Basketball Recruiting: Owls add transfer Riley Abercrombie from Boise St

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Former Boise State forward Riley Abercrombie will transfer to Rice basketball. He’s expected to be eligible to play this coming season.

Rice basketball had to retool after graduation and transfers thinned out its roster. Head coach Scott Pera hit the transfer portal, looking for the right players to fortify the depleted roster. Five new Owls have been added in the past few weeks. One of those new additions is returning back to Houston after two brief years away from home.

Boise State transfer Riley Abercrombie will transfer to Rice. Although no official announcement has been made at this time, he’s expected to be eligible for the 2020-2021 season. Abercrombie is an Australian native who played his high school basketball at Clear Lake in Houston. The 6-foot-9 forward spent the last two years at Boise.

Abercrombie redshirted his first season before seeing his first collegiate action last season. He played in 18 games,  last season, seeing extended action twice. He scored six points in 12 minutes against Alabama State and four points in 17 minutes against Utah State. For his career, Abercrombie tallied 23 points, 12 rebounds and three assists.

The Roost Podcast: Listen now to our Extended Offseason Interview Series

Even though several of his peers were not afforded the same opportunity, Abercrombie had the chance to visit campus and had previously met the coaches in person. That played a crucial role in his decision making process, one which he’s confident has led him to the right place.

Abercrombie cited a combination of driving forces in his decision to come to South Main including the Owls’ “great style of play” as well as “opportunity at [his] position.” The staff and the proximity to home were important as well. The academics rounded out the full picture. When it came time to make his decision, he called it “a no brainer in the end.”

He’ll add some size on the outside as well as another shooting presence from the wing. Abercrombie prides himself on his deep ball and expects to drop some threes when he gets on the court in Houston.

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Rice Basketball 2020: Transfers plunge promising offseason into uncertainty

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Rice basketball finds itself in a challenging position after losing three players to the Transfer Portal in the span of one week.

The sports news cycle hasn’t slowed down. Even though it’s been more than two weeks since sports of any kind were played, the news has continued to rise to the surface. Not all of it has been positive for Rice basketball.

On Friday, senior Josh Parrish announced he was transferring from the program. Sophomore Trey Murphy followed on Saturday. The dam broke Tuesday when fellow sophomore Drew Peterson also put his name into the Transfer Portal. In the span of less than a week, a promising offseason turned into a painfully bleak new reality.

Rice was already set to lose Ako Adams and Robert Martin to graduation this offseason. Now they’ll have to replace their top-five leading scorers. Absent those five, guard Chris Mullins is the only remaining player on the roster who started more than seven games last season. He averaged 7.3 points.

Murphy said “it was just time for a different opportunity”. Multiple sources have confirmed his suitor list will be vast. The talented shooter has been contacted by Arkansas, Arizona, Arizona State, Cincinnati, DePaul, Iowa State, Stanford, Texas, Wichita State, and Xavier. The allure of playing at the Power 5 level is clear.

More: Erica Ogwumike talks end of season, Rice career on The Roost Podcast

Peterson’s decision was not made in a vacuum. He called his choice to enter the transfer portal “in part, reactionary to [Murphy’s decision]. He added that he loved coach Pera, but it was “time for a new chapter” and that it was a “really hard decision.” Interest in services is heating up quickly. In the days since his announcement, he’s been contacted by Virginia Tech, Stanford, Minnesota, Cincinnati and Creighton, among others.

Roughly two weeks ago I spoke with Owls’ head coach Scott Pera. We had a great conversation, leading to a series of articles on the team and the future he’s trying to build at South Main. “It’s a process, it’s a growth, it’s a vision that now is really, really exciting. We enter Year 4 with this group coming back,” Pera said then. A lot has changed since and that core could be back to square one by the fall.

Pera issued this statement following the transfers:

I’m sorry to see the guys leave. I wish them the best. I’m going to continue to try to find the right guys for Rice, this program and this University as long as I am the head coach.

These losses will hamstring a program that had improved in the win column in every season under Pera. There’s hope for the future, anchored in two successive promising recruiting classes, but the near term just got unequivocally harder.

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Rice Basketball: Owls ready for next step in 2020 and beyond

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Rice basketball is headed in the right direction and Scott Pera has been tasked with turning that momentum into meaningful results in 2020 and beyond.

Seven. Thirteen. Fifteen. The gradual improvement of the Rice basketball team under head coach Scott Pera can be measured in a somewhat linear fashion. On the most rudimentary metric, wins, Pera’s squad has shown tangible improvement following his first year at Rice in 2017.

Rice finished 15-17 this past season, one win away from a .500 record. “I’m excited about where we’re going with this,” Pera said with passion, knowingly declaring a truth he believes runs much deeper than the win column could ever dictate. That’s because Pera came to Rice with the long game in mind.

Refusing to cut corners and committed to building things “the right way”, Pera has stuck to his guns this far. He’s endeavored to build a program rooted in players who love the challenge Rice affords, who know how to win and who are committed to working each and every day to get better. It sounds a bit like coach-speak, but there’s rich truth behind those ideals.

“Character counts in this business,” Pera declared, stressing culture and process over instant gratification. He believes that gratification isn’t far off.

“We’re close,” he said detailing the next few hurdles he sees in front of his team. For Pera, he views those next steps as establishing the program as a top-five finisher in the conference, one that always makes the Conference USA Tournament and routinely wins a few games in Frisco. Yes, a championship is the end goal, but Pera is committing to charting the course to get there, and then get back again, and again.

To get there takes building blocks that go beyond the box score. The maturity of the roster as a whole is something Pera routinely evaluates. He’s not afraid to step aside and let the leaders in the locker room lead. The Owls have reached a point in their development that Pera has full confidence they know the kind of self-talk they need to motivate themselves, even midgame.

More: Erica Ogwumike talks end of season, Rice career on The Roost Podcast

That resolve was put on display frequently. Erratic defensive performances put the Owls in double-digit holes throughout the season but Rice lost just four conference games by 10 or more points. They won five by double-digit margins. In nonconference play, they overcame a 22-point deficit to beat UC Santa Barbara on the road.

On the bad shooting days, Rice struggled to keep pace with their better opponents. Nevertheless, it was rare for the Owls to enter the final quarter of play without a fighting chance to win. The worse results came on the road with Rice losing only one game at home (vs Sam Houston State) by more than eight points. More often than not Rice was competitive and that energy has staying power.

The Owls were inconsistent, but they never lacked effort. At times, they were undisciplined but they never quit. Those are makings of a team with the right mental makeup to take another developmental step.

There’s no doubt seniors Ako Adams and Robert Martin made a tremendous impact. But the poise and influence of sophomores like Drew Peterson, Trey Murphy and Chris Mullins project a mentality Pera believes he can build on. Peterson emerged as a bonafide leader this season, one of several faces to turn to in times of struggle.

“It’s a process, it’s a growth, it’s a vision that now is really, really exciting. We enter Year 4 with this group coming back,” Pera said. “I’m looking forward to seeing these guys make the next step.”

By his own standard, Pera’s team should be a contender in Conference USA next season. Whether or not they reach that mantel will be determined by their effort and focus from now until November. Pera will put in the work. If he can get his team to maintain his level of focus, the future of Rice basketball could be as bright as he believes it to be. Only time will tell.

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Rice Basketball: Robert Martin finds home as Owls’ sixth man

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Robert Martin found his role for Rice basketball midway through his senior season. How a switch to the bench paid off for Martin and his team.

Basketball is a game of adjustments. On the simplest level, each player strives to take their best shot. How that shot is executed — and who takes it — varies from series to series, game to game and season to season. What worked for a team in November isn’t always the best recipe by February. That’s the puzzle Rice Basketball and senior Robert Martin found themselves in this season.

Martin started nine of his first 10 games and had a decent amount of success. He scored a season-high 23 points with five three-pointers against Houston. That was part of a five-game run of double-digit points. But a six-point outing against Lamar in which he shot 1-for-10 from the field served as a reminder that things weren’t clicking quite at 100 percent for the Owls’ senior.

Then Martin made the bold decision to ask head coach Scott Pera to come off the bench rather than play from the starting lineup. It was Martin who approached Pera about the switch, not the other way around. “The fact that he would say that and think that could be beneficial to him and the team says a lot about him,” Pera said, recalling the conversation. “It just worked.”

The shift was almost instantaneous. Martin dropped 20 points against Houston Baptist in his first game after his starting streak ended. He scored in double-digits in 13 of his final 17 games from that point onward.

There was a mental shift in Martin that impacted how he played on the court. He shot 36.0 percent from the field in games he started and 49.6 percent when he came off the bench. He hit 27.1 of his three-point shots as a starter and 41.3 percent off the bench. Martin averaged slightly more assists (2.1 per game to 1.9) and fewer turnovers (1.5 per game to 2.1) in his new role compared to when he was starting. It was almost as if a switch had flipped.

More: Erica Ogwumike talks end of season, Rice career on The Roost Podcast

Martin’s mental pivot impacted his teammates. Shortly after he moved to the bench the team fell into a tough stretch, opening C-USA play 1-7.

“At this point, we really have nothing to lose. So I think that although all the pressures, the jitters, being nervous, we can kind of throw that all out the door,” Martin said following a heartbreaking home loss to UTEP. Rice would lose their next game to UTSA, but then things turned around.

Rice basketball knocked off C-USA’s eventual champion North Texas at home to begin a hot streak. They won six of their next eight games, clinching a spot in the conference tournament. The credit doesn’t belong to Martin alone, but his decision impacted the team in a big way.

Pera admitted he didn’t know how Martin was going to fit into the rotation at the beginning of the season. “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure which way it was gonna go. Were we going to start him? Weren’t we going to start him,” he recalled.

Ultimately Martin made the decision on his own. Pera supported him. It didn’t come to pass like either had drawn it up, but some plans require a bit of tinkering. Martin owes his strong finish to his senior season to a course correction that impacted everyone for the better.

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