Women’s basketball hits skid with March looming

By Andersen Pickard     2/25/25 11:54pm

Rice women’s basketball fell below .500 again Saturday, losing to the University of Texas at San Antonio, 57-55. 

They are now 13-14 overall, including 6-9 in American Athletic Conference play. Succeeding on the road has been a major challenge for the Owls, who are just 2-9 away from Tudor Fieldhouse.

With just one win and five losses through the first three weeks of February, Rice faces an uphill battle to make a threatening run in the AAC. Their lone win this month — a 72-39 drubbing of Florida Atlantic University — snapped a four-game losing streak. 

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The Owls’ longest winning streak of the conference schedule lasted just two games. However, the team continues to prepare with its sights set on next month’s AAC conference tournament.

“Even in our skid, we come out every single day and they’re ready to go to work the next day,” head coach Lindsay Edmonds said. “They have great, positive energy and practice has been uplifting.”

Rice now ranks ninth out of 13 teams in the AAC. All 13 programs receive a bid to play in the conference tournament, but falling to a lower seed results in a more challenging schedule. The 12th and 13th seeds would need to win five consecutive tournament games to be dubbed conference champions, while any of the top four seeds would need to win just three.

The Owls defied the odds in AAC tournament play last year, winning four games as the No. 10 seed, securing the conference title and earning a bid to play against No. 3 LSU in March Madness. 

“That’s something we want to get back to,” senior forward Malia Fisher said in October. “We want a ring.”

Winning the AAC tournament for a second consecutive season would be improbable, but not impossible. Rice has currently played 15 of its 18 conference games. 

At this exact point last year, the Owls were 9-6 in conference play. They lost each of their final three regular-season contests, finishing the year at 9-9 overall.

As it stands, 9-9 is the best possible outcome for the 2024-25 Rice team, which would need to win each of its final three games to achieve that record. They can finish as high as fifth in the conference, or as low as 11th.

Statistically, the Owls trail their opponents in chances from the free-throw line, ranking last among AAC teams in foul shots attempted. They lead the conference in rebounding, but they’re second-to-last in steals. 

Rice has also surrendered an AAC-most five three-pointers per game. Relative to last season, they give their opponents far more opportunities to score. 

This season, the Owls lack an underdog mentality. One year ago, Rice seemingly came out of nowhere to win the conference. 

Now, though, they’re the reigning champions facing plenty of added pressure, including a preseason coaches’ poll that projected them to finish second. 

Head coach Lindsay Edmonds previously acknowledged that the Owls have a target on their backs from last year’s March Madness berth.

“I’ve been a part of a program that won back-to-back conference championships,” Edmonds said. “That first one’s hard, but the second one is really, really hard, because everyone is going to give you their best shot.”

So far, Rice has failed to meet the expectations set by last year’s championship run, but the program hasn’t lost any confidence. 

“I kept saying we were going to right the ship, and I feel like this is the first part of that,” Edmonds said after the Feb. 18 win over FAU. “We want to make sure that we are going into March as confident as we can ... No one has given up on the season. No one has said that it’s over.”

After the regular season concludes, Rice will travel to Dallas, Texas, for the single-elimination AAC tournament starting March 8.

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