Men's basketball falters against top squads

By Ryan Glassman     12/2/10 6:00pm

If the men's basketball team hopes to improve upon its 2009-2010 win total, the turnaround will have to begin in the games that come down to the final possessions. After going just 1-5 in games decided by five points or fewer a season ago, the Owls can begin to turn around their overall fortunes by closing out games with better play. But after three road losses by a combined seven points, Head Coach Ben Braun's squad is yet to buck the trend of late-game struggles.

The stretch of heartbreaking defeats began on Nov. 18 on the road against an evenly matched Santa Clara University (4-3) team. Rice jumped out to a 41-35 halftime lead behind 15 first-half points from sophomore forward Arsalan Kazemi. Senior center Trey Stanton's basket with 11 minutes left expanded Rice's lead to 10 points, but Santa Clara cut into the deficit with a 12-4 run over the next five minutes.

With just 18 seconds left, Santa Clara's Kevin Foster, brother of former Owl great Rodney Foster (Jones '09) hit a three-pointer to give the Broncos a 66-65 lead, their first of the game. Rice held the ball for the final shot but could not convert on the potential game-winner, falling for the first time in the early season by a single point.

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The Owls then came home for a match-up with St. Gregory's University (3-1) and looked sluggish following the tough loss. Rice shot poorly in the first half against its overmatched National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics opponent, leading 37-30 at the half after shooting just 34 percent in the first 20 minutes.

Rice rebounded in the second half, going on a 14-2 run led by Kazemi, sophomore guard Tamir Jackson and senior guard Corey Pflieger to take a 71-53 lead. Rice pulled away for a 75-58 win behind a combined 33 points from Jackson and Kazemi. Jackson understood what caused the Owls' slow start.

"We're very disappointed in ourselves," Jackson said. "I think we were being a little overconfident, a little cocky and arrogant."

The Owls suffered a scare when junior guard Connor Frizzelle was fouled hard under the basket in the first half and had to be helped into the locker room. Frizzelle, who Braun said had no memory of the incident, did not return but was cleared for the next game.

Standing at 3-1, Rice traveled to Denton to take on University of North Texas (5-1), the Sun Belt Conference champions from a year ago. Leading by 59-53 at the last media timeout, the Owls executed their offense poorly down the stretch and surrendered an 8-2 run that tied the game with under two minutes left. The Mean Green converted back-to-back missed shots by Rice into points, taking a 64-61 lead with 32 seconds left after a lay-up by Kendrick Hogans. Rice cut the lead to one in the closing seconds, but North Texas sealed the game with free throws as a last-second three-point attempt was no good. The Owls fell 68-65 for their second tough road loss in just five days.

Four games into the season, Rice faced by far its toughest test yet this past Saturday when the Owls went to Austin to take on the No. 19 University of Texas (6-1). Facing a bigger, faster and more athletic team, Braun put his team in a two-three defensive zone in hopes of offsetting his team's physical disadvantages by forcing the Longhorns to shoot over the top. For much of the game it was this zone that kept the Owls close, as yet another Rice road game came down to the final possessions.

The game's opening minutes went as expected, with the Longhorns finding open space in the zone and hitting shots to pull out to a quick 17-8 lead. Rice's defense was getting beat to the spots and Texas was getting the ball to the hoop with ease.

But coming out of a timeout, the Owls tightened up the zone and pushed the Longhorns' shooters further outside, forcing more three-point shots on the defensive end. Texas was forced to settle for jump shots rather than utilize their physical advantages, and the Longhorns went cold for the half's final seven minutes.

Rice finished the first half on a 12-1 run in which Texas went 0-9 from the field, all on jumpers and deep three-pointers. Pflieger hit a three to give Rice their first lead of the game at 22-19 with two minutes left in the half.

Head Coach Rick Barnes called a timeout as his team's cold shooting and stagnant offense silenced the stunned Texas crowd. Rice took a 23-20 lead into the half after forcing its opponent to put up 10 threes, of which they only sunk two. No Owl had more than five points in the half, but it was the team effort, especially on the defensive end, that had Rice thinking upset through 20 minutes.

With the crowd out of the game and the two-three zone playing out effectively, the Owls came out in the second half exchanging shots with the Longhorns to keep the game close. Texas' star sophomore Jordan Hamilton's three consecutive three-pointers gave the Horns a 33-29 lead, but Pflieger responded with a quick three, as he would at several key junctures in the half.

Texas guard Jai Lucas' three-pointer, the team's seventh of the half, with eight minutes left gave the Horns a 48-41 lead in what appeared to be the turning point of the game.

But the Owls once again cut into the deficit when Pflieger and junior forward Lucas Kuipers hit back-to-back three-pointers to make it a 50-49 game with under five minutes left. The teams exchanged buckets until a pair of Kazemi free throws made it a one-point game with under a minute left. For the third time in four games, the Owls found themselves on the road against a formidable opponent with just a few possessions left to decide the contest.

And while the two-three zone was spectacular for most of the game, it was Texas' hot shooting that forced Rice to play man-to-man defense, a change that doomed the Owls in the final 60 seconds. Trailing the heavily favored Longhorns by a point, Rice fell victim to a defensive lapse when Texas guard Curtis Joseph set a screen at the elbow and floated unguarded to the hoop. Joseph caught a pass at the block and put in an uncontested lay-up to give his team the 60-57 lead with 37 seconds left.

Texas sent Rice to the line twice in the final seconds but went just two for four and were forced to foul to keep their hopes alive. The Owls sent Jordan Hamilton to the line with six seconds left, and the sophomore missed the first free throw before making the second to put the score at 62-59. Without any timeouts left, Jackson took the ball the length of the court and got a decent look at the tying three-point shot, but the attempt rimmed out as Jackson fell to the floor in disappointment.

The upset-minded Owls executed their game plan to near perfection, but it was the 9-15 shooting from behind the arc that turned the game around for Texas in the second half. And although the effort put forth by Rice certainly surprised a few people, the three-point loss provide little consolation for a team that has become all too familiar with heartbreaking road losses in this early season.

The high-profile matchups continued for Rice, as they took on another perennial power in the University of Arizona Wednesday night at Tudor Fieldhouse.

However, it was clear nearly midway through the first half that the Owls had left their game behind in Austin. The Wildcats bested Rice in every facet of the game, as Derrick Williams led all scorers with 18 points, in addition to three other Wildcats that scored in double figures.

Kazemi led Rice with 17 points, going nine of 10 from the free-throw line. Jackson contributed 13 points and three assists, while Frizzelle chipped in 11 points. After the 9:31 mark, Rice trailed by double digits for the rest of the game, as they could not recover from the 13 points off turnovers that they gave up to Arizona in the first half, losing 84-57. The Owls square off against Lamar University (4-3) tomorrow at 2 p.m. at Tudor Fieldhouse.

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