87 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(03/28/08 12:00am)
When three straight wins over ranked opponents can be described as the calm before the storm, it is easy to see how tough the men's tennis schedule really is. Having already faced a dozen opponents ranked in the top 75 over the last few months, the men's tennis team took on three more at last weekend's Rice Invite, sweeping aside No. 46 University of Iowa, No. 68 Middle Tennessee State and No. 62 University of San Diego to capture the tournament crown.But now is no time for the 22nd-ranked Owls to exhale - their most important test of the season comes to Jake Hess Tennis Stadium this Wednesday. The University of Tulsa, currently ranked 11th in the nation, has given Rice the greatest trouble of any opponent in recent memory: The Golden Hurricane has halted the Owls' last two Conference USA championship runs in the final match to capture two consecutive conference titles.
(03/28/08 12:00am)
When the 2008-'09 men's basketball season opens, the renovated Autry Court will not be the only new sight for fans. On Sunday, Ben Braun was announced as the new head coach at Rice, replacing the departed Willis Wilson (Will Rice '82) who led the team for the past 16 seasons.Braun has an extensive resumé as a Division I coach, having helmed the men's basketball team at the University of California-Berkeley since 1997. The Chicago native led Cal to a 219-154 record in his 12 seasons to compile the second-highest number of wins in the school's history. However, Braun's teams have struggled of late, missing the postseason from 2005-'07 and falling to Ohio State University in the second round of this year's National Invitation Tournament.
(03/21/08 12:00am)
While winning may not constitute the entire purpose of sport, it is certainly one of the more important requirements of coaching a Division I athletic program. Because of this requirement, men's basketball head coach Willis Wilson (Will Rice '82) was fired last Friday, two days after Rice was knocked out of the Conference USA tournament by the University of Southern Mississippi. The final loss dropped the Owls to 3-27 overall, and their 0-16 showing in conference play now stands as the worst men's basketball record in C-USA history.As the face of Rice basketball for the last 16 years, Wilson compiled a 219-246 record to become both the longest tenured and winningest coach in Rice history. However, Wilson's extensive experience could not lead the Owls around the numerous roadblocks they encountered during the course of the 2007-'08 season, and by the time the last whistle blew, the defeats added up to a 20-game losing streak, the third-worst run for men's basketball in school history.
(03/21/08 12:00am)
At long last, it's over. All the pain, agony and suffering that has been piling up over the past couple months - no more. And that whooshing sound you heard the other day? No, that's not the deflation of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign - that's the collective sigh released by Rice men's basketball fans the country over.At long last, the basketball season is finished.
(03/21/08 12:00am)
Most Rice students across campus were in pain last week because of collisions with not-so-stray water balloons. The men's tennis team, on the other hand, was hurting for an entirely different reason. For the second week in a row, No. 17 Rice lost to a lower-ranked opponent at home, falling 4-2 to No. 26 Louisiana State University and dropping to 9-5 on the year. The defeat came one week after the Owls, then ranked 11th in the country, fell 4-3 against then- No. 17 Florida State University.Rice, which has only played two matches in the last two weeks, will pick up its leisurely pace this weekend. As host of the Rice Invite, the Owls will have matches against three ranked opponents in as many days. The first will be today at noon at Jake Hess Tennis Stadium against No. 49 University of Iowa. Iowa recently played the cutting board for the Ohio State University buzzsaw - the nation's No.2 team promptly routed the host Hawkeyes 7-0.
(03/14/08 12:00am)
For the men's tennis team, the confines of Jake Hess Tennis Stadium are a welcome sight. In most instances, that is. The Owls, ranked 13th in the nation, found themselves rudely treated by a visiting Florida State University, which pulled out a 4-3 come-from-behind win last Tuesday. Rice's loss to the 17th-ranked Seminoles came on the heels of a California road swing that saw them drop two ranked opponents. However, those wins sandwiched a 7-0 blowout loss to the No. 6 University of California-Los Angeles on March 5, Rice's first road loss to a top-50 opponent this year.The Owls finally get a reprieve from their strenuous schedule, with an entire week off until their next match - a home contest against No. 26 Louisiana State University next Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. The Tigers have been streaky of late, winning three in a row after dropping a pair of matches to ranked foes, and boast only one player, No. 86 Michael Venus, in the top 115.
(03/14/08 12:00am)
The game of baseball has many great moments any fan loves to see - a do-it-yourself triple play, a successful "daylight" pickoff move or a squeeze like the one our very own Jimmy Comerota executed to perfection against UH. Not only do these plays result in gleeful grins from fans in attendance (and, if we're lucky, Wayne Graham), but since the years of yore, baseball writers have scrounged for nicknames to describe them for the next morning's newspaper readers. From "basket catches" to "worm-burners," all were cleverly coined yet all were easy to picture.But despite following the game since I was a diapered little dude, there was one phrase which had origins outside my experience - the "Baltimore Chop." Cleaving downwards with the bat, a batter aims to bounce the ball off the area around the plate and sky it into the air while the impatient fielders squirm underneath. Rarely is this play utilized; rarer still is its success. Those who unleash the Chop are few in number and must be quicker than a chameleon's tongue on smack, i.e. Ichiro or Jose Reyes.
