Men's basketball better than weak record suggests

By Brody Rollins     2/26/09 6:00pm

For all the back-and-forth of a basketball game, it is ironic that most contests come down to a single possession. The men's basketball team was feeling the irony last Saturday, overcoming a 16-point deficit only to come up short in the final seconds, losing 69-66 to Southern Methodist University last Saturday in Dallas. While the Owls (8-18, 3-9 Conference USA) have certainly stepped up their play in the past three weeks, it is hard to decipher that improvement from their record, which finds them as winning only two of their last seven games.

However, last Saturday's three-point loss against SMU (8-17, 2-10 C-USA) marked the team's third defeat by three points or less in that same stretch. For the season, Rice is 1-5 in games decided by fewer than five points, which stands as the most noticeable carryover from last season.

The team hopes to change that pattern this weekend when they face cross-town rival University of Houston on Saturday afternoon at Tudor Fieldhouse.

---

---

In their last meeting in a packed house at Hofheinz Pavilion, the Owls rose to occasion and silenced the crowd until the final minutes, when the third-place Cougars (17-8, 8-4 C-USA) pulled away with for the 72-65 win.

Like many other games this season, Rice faced a deficit at halftime but battled back in the second to tie the game at 61-61 with under four minutes to play. But that was as close as the Owls would come as Houston phenom Aubrey Coleman put the Cougars back up on top by two, sparking a run of eight unanswered points that ran the clock down to under one minute to play.

Coleman scored 22 of his game-high 28 points in the second half and nearly single-handedly lifted the Cougars to victory. Cougars head coach Tom Penders has said believes Coleman may be the top player in the conference and is a lock as a draft selection whenever he chooses to declare for the NBA draft.

The Owls, and junior guard Cliff Ghoram specifically, will have to do a better job containing Coleman tomorrow if they are to have a shot at playing spoiler in Houston's run for a tournament bid.

"We're really excited to play Houston back at home," Ghoram said. "We know how hungry we were to beat them the first time when we were so close. We just want to do a good job of controlling the tempo and getting a good start."

Head coach Ben Braun reinforced Ghoram's excitement at returning the favor to Houston.

"It's great to have this game back at our place," Braun said. "We were so close last time that it's a great opportunity for us to come back and hopefully return the favor. If we play well, I like our chances of being able to knock them off. It's going to be a great game."

In order to win Saturday, the Owls will need to put last weekend's disappointing loss against SMU behind them.

Rice nearly let the game get away from them in the first half when the Mustangs held a 35-19 advantage with just over five minutes to play. That deficit was one less than the largest lead the Owls took over the Mustangs in their previous meeting, which Rice won 69-57 at Autry Court on Jan. 14.

The Owls rallied before the half with a 9-3 run and went into the break down 38-28.

It was not until the 11:35 mark in the second half that Rice finally clawed its way back to a tie-game at 55-55 off a free throw by sophomore center Trey Stanton, who finished the game with six points and six rebounds. It was an impressive show of reslience, but considering SMU's last-place positioning in the conference, certainly not unexpected.

The Owls held the lead twice in the game, once with 6:50 left and again with 3:33 left, both times by only two points. They took their second lead of the game off a three-pointer by freshman guard Connor Frizelle, bringing the score to 64-62.

Frizelle's made basket should come as no surprise, as the team leads C-USA in three-point field goal percentage at 39.4 percent. Rice hit just under that mark Saturday, going 10-24 from beyond the arc. Frizzelle accounted for four of those off of five attempts and scored 14 points in the game.

But those three-pointers could only take them so far, and after five unanswered points by the Mustangs, the Owls would muster no more points until senior forward Aleks Perka made a layup with five seconds left.

A pair of free throws by SMU's Mike Walker brought the deficit back to three with two seconds left in the game, giving the Owls just one more chance.

Junior guard Cory Pflieger attempted to heave a desperation shot at the buzzer, but his miss gave the Mustangs the nail-biting victory. With the loss, the Owls continue to struggle on the road, where they are 0-6 in conference play this year.

Senior guard Rodney Foster led the team in scoring 18 points and dished out a team-high four assists, all while playing with ankle and wrist injuries he sustained during the game.

While time is running out on this year's team to turn things around, significant help could come next year as the race to sign touted high school senior Demarcus Cousins continues.

Cousins, expected to make his decision later this spring, had previously committed to play for the University of Alabama-Birmingham, but withdrew his verbal commitment when the university could not guarantee head coach Mike Davis would coach the team next year.

Along with Rice, Cousins, whom Sports Illustrated called the "most physically talented [high school] player in the nation," considers the University of Memphis, University of Washington, North Carolina State University and Louisiana State University as his other choices alongside Rice, according to scout.com, but has no clear favorite at the moment.

Out of Birmingham, Ala., Cousins appears to be drawn to Rice because of its academic reputation and Braun's history of developing post players for future success in the NBA, two aspects he has mentioned as important in discussions with the media.

---