Men's basketball plagued by inconsistency

By Yan Digilov     1/8/09 6:00pm

One step forward and two steps back is an approach men's basketball coach Ben Braun hopes will not last in Rice's struggle to find its identity on the court. When students left after final exams in mid-December, the basketball team stayed on the court for a six-game stretch during which they took on some of their most challenging opponents of the year. On Dec. 17, before the Owls took on sixth-ranked University of Oklahoma and one-loss Texas A&M University, they had to take on another university known better for academic rather than athletic strength: Luxury cars filled the parking lot when Harvard, an undersized squad known for its numerous perimeter threats, came to town.

As expected, the Crimson shot 58 percent from behind the arc in the first half and took a 29-28 lead after the first 20 minutes. The deficit stayed small thanks to a low-post game that favored the Owls 12-2 in scoring, but a combination of missed opportunities from under the basket, low energy, and Harvard's lights-out shooting made it look like Rice was the underdog in the game.

After going down by 11 with 8 minutes in the game due to Harvard's outstanding 78 percent shooting from behind the arc in the second half, the team finally gained some energy when senior Rodney Foster answered with a pair of three-pointers of his own. The Owls then staged a fierce comeback at Tudor Fieldhouse, taking the lead with 2:45 left after two free-throws from freshman Connor Frizzelle.

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Rice barely ran away with a 67-63 win over the physically inferior team. But if a lack of energy or motivation merely hurt the team against Harvard, it killed them when they traveled to Pittsburg to play Duquesne University on Dec. 20.

The Dukes were in control of the game from start to finish, as the Owls came out flat and unfocused.

And then it happened: As if some higher power had ordained, "Let there be light," the Owls came home to battle sixth-ranked OU in what was an astonishingly exciting game at Tudor Fieldhouse on Dec. 22.

"We had 24 hours prep," junior guard Cory Pflieger said. "For 24 hours prep of a game plan, I think we did very good against a team like Oklahoma ... Usually, we have to be down by a certain amount to get our energy level up."

After watching the Owls play in their first two games of the break, no one could have guessed that their matchup against OU would feature 10 lead changes and exciting basketball to the closing minutes of the game in front of a crowd of over 3,300.

The Sooners game plan was to utilize their worst kept secret, the 6-foot, 10-inch, 250 pound sophomore forward Blake Griffin, a guaranteed first-round pick in the coming NBA draft. He would finish the night with 27 points, but considering Rice was without its biggest center, Aleks Perka, Rice's frontcourt did a good job of keeping him checked.

They limited him to only 10 points in the first half, as the Owls played stifling defense, forced turnovers, and made clutch shots to make themselves look like a top-tier program.

"You have to give a lot of credit to Rice," OU head coach Jeff Capel said. "I thought they played really hard. Ben had those kids prepared. For us, it's a big win."

The Owls' momentum was maintained for the entire first half, only to be stopped by an unlikely culprit - the clock. Due to the larger-than-usual number of press correspondents attend the game with their computers, the electrical circuits began malfunctioning before the game even started, creating serious problems for the massive scoreboard hanging over the floor.

The Owls suffered dearly from the ongoing glitches at the end of the first half, as they were winning 28-27 with only seconds left. OU tried to press, but the Owls crossed the half court mark successfully. Unfortunately for them, the clock did not start, and after inbounding the ball again, OU came away with a steal and took back some confidence as they went up 29-28 at half. The clock problems continued for the entire game, causing a headache for both sides.

When the teams came back from halftime, the game became considerably more physical, a fact that helped Rice more than it did OU at first, as the Owls shot 80 percent from the free-throw line compared to OU's 50 percent.

Rice's continued to exhibit its offensive competency in the second half. The Owls had 27 bench-points to OU's two, because of an offense that was moving fluidly and firing on all cylinders. With 7:40 left in the game, the Owls tied the score at 46 with a lay-up from junior Lawrence Ghoram. Ghoram finished the game with 16 points, second on the squad to Pflieger, who had 17.

Throughout the match, OU did not waver from its game plan: get the ball to the big guy. The Sooners also clamped down on their perimeter defense, allowing the Owls to make only three shots outside the paint in the second half.

After the game was tied at 46, the strategy started wearing on the home team, as OU slowly built a lead. The extra attention on Griffin also opened up the floor for freshman phenom Willie Warren to take over the game, and he finished with a game-high 31 points.

"Blake Griffin, of course, is just a beast down low," said Pflieger. "We did the best we could. We doubled down on him, and he was still able to get some shots up and go nine for 11."

Griffin's aggression on the post built up when he was cut under the eye during a Rice double-team, energizing his team and the considerable number of OU fans at the game. The fans also got off their seats when a fan in the stands put up a sign that read "45-35," a reference to OU football's loss to The University of Texas.

The surge of energy, though, did not carry over to the start of Rice's next road contest against the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. The Owls went down by nine midway through the first half, before doing exactly what Pflieger had warned against-waking up only after underperforming. Fortunately, it did not cost them the win.

The Owls managed to bridge the gap and made it a three-point game at the half. Five minutes into the second half, they tied the game for the first time, and gained their first lead at 47-46 with 12:52 to play. The Trojans were able to tie the game again twice, but never regained the lead as the Owls won their first away game since playing Texas State on Dec. 5, 2007.

Stanton, Ghoram, Kuipers, and Foster all hit double figures in the big win against a team with only three losses, adding a boost to the Owls' confidence, an asset they would need on New Year's Eve as they took on one-loss Texas A&M.

Starting three players over 6-foot-7 inches tall, Texas A&M presented another challenge in the low-post for the Owls. Luckily, Perka had played four minutes in the previous game and was cleared by doctors to play the whole contest.

"It has been a while," he said. "It has been 4-5 weeks now, and when I first got in there, it was a little rusty." Perka finished the game with nine points in 15 minutes of play.

His help was vital as the Aggies returned time and again to their low-post strengths throughout the game. The Owls kept the visitors within seven points in the first 10 minutes of the game, during which the Aggies took an 18-11 lead. Then, fueled by energetic play of sophomore Suleiman Braimoh, who had started for two games in a row after turning in solid performances, the Owls began their run.

In front of over 5,200 screaming fans - most of whom where wearing maroon - Rice took the lead with a lay-up from sophomore Bryan Beasley that made it 28-26 with 3:30 left in the first half.

The Owls closed out the half with a 34-29 lead, stunning the Aggies with their offensive efficiency and shot selection. Seven players scored for the Owls in the first half, and, most importantly, they were seriously contending the Aggies' big men whenever they went up for a shot.

"We were pushing their team around, and I liked that," Braun said. "We were being physical with a very physical team."

Pfleiger kicked the second half off with a three-point bucket, proving that the Owls were not planning on rolling over in a second half meltdown. What ensued was a back-and-forth between the battling teams, exciting the crowd to epic proportions. The building got so loud that after blowing the whistle four times to end a timeout, the referees allowed Rice to inbound the ball with no Aggies on the court, even though they had not heard the calls to resume play.

Afterwards, Texas A&M head coach Mark Turgeon was given a technical foul after expressing his displeasure with the call. Foster's free-throw gave the Owls a 42-39 lead with 15:27 to play.

The game remained close as the Aggies hammered the Owls in the post, but the guard play of Foster, who was controlling the game at point, kept the offense moving just the way Braun had planned.

After a lead change and two tie games, however, the Owls inexplicably shutdown with approximately six minutes left to play. "I thought for 32 minutes we outworked them and played tough," Braun said. "That is the good news. We battled and battled and battled. We just have to believe that those last six or eight minutes are going to be the same effort, the same intensity."

The Aggies ran away in the final minutes, adding another victory with the 72-60 win in Houston.

"What got us the lead in the first half was our aggressiveness and our want to win that game," Foster, who finished with a game-high 18 points, said. "Down the stretch, we played not to lose instead of playing to win. We have got to get out of that. We have too much talent on this team to play that way. We are a lot better than what we showed at the end of that game."

To prove that the name of the game is inconsistency, the Owls topped off some of the best ball they played all year with an embarrassing 74-43 road loss to The University of Richmond. Ghoram led the Owls in scoring with 10 points.

"There are little things in my estimation that we have to step up, and we have to do it collectively," Braun said. "The belief system has to be collective belief. It can't be one or two guys. It has got to resonate all the way from the first guy on the team to the last guy on the team."

The next game at Tulane on Jan. 10 will mark the start of conference competition. After that, Rice comes home to play Southern Methodist University on Jan. 14. With the stakes raised, the last thing the Owls have been this season is unexciting, and nothing less should be expected as Rice works down the stretch to show the nation it can play ball.

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