Monday's Sports Update: Owls upend Dustdevils at home

By Yan Digilov     2/4/10 6:00pm

In a much-needed boost of confidence Rice beat Texas A&M International today at Tudor Fieldhouse by a score of 73-66. Freshman Arsalan Kazemi led the Owls with 18 points and 12 rebounds. Junior Trey Stanton and sophomores Lucas Kuipers and Connor Frizzelle also finished with double figures, scoring 16, 15 and 12, respectively.Just two days after a demoralizing loss to the University of Alabama-Birmingham, the Owls seemed to be fighting off fatigue from the start of the game. Rice went down by two points after only two minutes of play, a gap that widened to seven over the next three minutes.

Down 17-10 against a Division II program, the Owls were staring at an unfortunate reality check. Senior Cliff Ghoram tried to get the team jumpstarted with a three-pointer, but A&M International fired back with a three of their own, making the score 20-13 with 14 minutes left.

Luckily for the Owls the spurt of turnovers that has often plagued them when they are holding a lead began infecting the visitors. Despite sloppy play from the Owls, the score stood at 20-17 midway through the first due to a four minute scoring drought from the Dustdevils.

---

---

The Devils pulled away again to a lead of 24-19, but the home team finally tied the game up in stunning fashion with 5:30 left when sophomore Nate Schwarze threw a perfect ally-oop pass to Trey Stanton who slammed it down with authority.

A large part of the comeback was due to the fact that the Owls started shooting one-and-one with nine minutes left in the half. The over-aggressive A&M International squad fouled heavily for the whole game, finishing with 26 total.

Though the visitors continued to give up turnovers, throw lazy passes and even literally walk the ball out-of-bounds, Rice would not be able to push through for the lead until two minutes left in the half with two free-throws from Kazemi.

Kazemi finished the half with only four points and four rebounds, appearing to be on his way to a lackluster performance. But after coming out from halftime leading by only a score of 28-27, the whole Rice squad seemed to get an energy boost.

A little over a minute into the second half, Kazemi wowed the crowd when he grabbed a rebound and headed down the court at full speed. After a behind the back dribble to throw off his defender, Kazemi followed through with a three-point play the old-fashioned way, making the bucket and getting fouled. The score was 32-28, and the lead would slowly grow for the rest of the half.

Amazingly enough, Kazemi one-upped his previous play with another coast-to-coast run three minutes later, this time slamming it down to finish with an air-Jordan-like move to set the score at 38-30.

With 11 minutes left in the game, Schwarze sent Kazemi to the rim with another ally-oop to make it 47-38. Their lead got as large as 13 with just under seven minutes to play.

The Dustdevils did put some scare into the home team, though down the stretch. With a minute left, they made a three-pointer, and forced freshman A.J. Holland into a turnover with the score at 69-60. Another quick three put the deficit at only six. Then, Holland turned the ball over again off a full court press with 30 seconds left in the game.

Fortunately for the Owls, A&M International could not convert. Both Kazemi and Ghoram made their free throws, and the Owls finished with a well-deserved 73-66 victory.

---