Men’s basketball begins conference play with win

By Kevin Mohanram 1/14/15 10:38am

The Rice University men’s basketball team opened conference play on Friday, Jan. 2 with a 15-point win over the University of Texas at San Antonio. They then dropped two games to the University of Texas, El Paso and University of North Texas. The Owls are currently 1-2 in conference play and 4-10 overall.

Before conference play began, Rice played the University of Texas, Austin, which was ranked No. 10 nationally at the time of the game.

Although UT won the game 66-55 with a late run, Head Coach Mike Rhoades said even though they did not win, the game showed them they could compete at a high level.

“We really played well,” Rhoades said. “We played well enough to win ... We were right there. We have to keep getting better so we can learn to win games. The Texas game showed us that we can play with a lot of people if we’re on our game, follow the game plan, and play together.”

Over the past three conference games, sophomore guard Marcus Jackson has averaged 23 points per game on 60.5 percent shooting from the field.

Rhoades said Jackson’s increase in scoring is not the only thing that has changed about Jackson’s game and praised him as an emerging leader in the team.

”It’s not even a scoring streak as much as it is [experience],” Rhoades said. “Early in the year, he was really pressuring himself to do everything. All we talked to him about was [playing] better defense — just keep playing better defense and your offense will come. He’s a good player and he’s taking the right shots. What we see is that he’s [taken] a leadership role.”

Rhoades said he was proud of the team’s commitment to practice over winter break.

“I’m really proud of this team, [mainly] the effort and the approach they’ve had over break,” Rhoades said. “We’ve been [on campus] for a long time just by ourselves and we’ve gotten better and closer as a team. I’m really proud of them. We’ve come up short in some games but we won our first [conference] game against UTSA. I think it was the first time in four years we started off the league with a win. We played well enough to have UTEP on the ropes. The other day against North Texas, we didn’t play very well, … but we found a way to get back in it and almost pull it out.”

Rice has road games against Old Dominion University and the University of North Carolina, Charlotte in the upcoming week. The next home game will be on Jan. 22 against the University of Southern Mississippi at 7 p.m.

Old Dominion currently has the best record in the conference, going 13-2 over the course of the season, and 2-1 in conference play. UNC-Charlotte is sitting in the middle of the pack with an overall record of 7-8.

Old Dominion has the No. 1 scoring defense in C-USA, allowing 55.9 points per game. Converseley, Rice allows an average of 65.4. The game against ODU will tip off on Thursday, Jan. 15 at 6 p.m.