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The expectations were low for the women's basketball team as they entered the Conference USA tournament last Saturday. After losing to the University of Central Florida by 25 points earlier in the season, few could have expected the performance the Owls (7-23, 2-14 C-USA), stuck with the lowest seed, would put up. Fortunately, seniors Maudess Fulton and Emery Carter knew they had it in them all along.
It was senior night at Tudor Fieldhouse this afternoon as men's basketball fell to the University of Tulsa 60-50. Junior Cory Pflieger was the only Owl to hit double figures with ten points. Tulsa's Jerome Jordan scored a game-high 15, one of three visiting players to score more than ten.
With its win over the University of Tulsa on Friday, the women's basketball team put together consecutive home wins for the first time since the beginning of the season. It is difficult to say, though, if the Owls (7-20, 2-11 C-USA) have accomplished the main objective that most coaching staffs carry throughout the year: Be better when you finish than when you started.
Good things come to those who wait. Unfortunately for the women's basketball team, good things are also said to come in small packages, and despite winning their first conference game of the year last week, their efforts may be too little, too late.With four games left before the Conference USA Championship, scheduled for March 5-8, the Owls (6-19, 1-11 C-USA) still have much to do before they can be taken as a legitimate contender at the end of the season. But their solid effort against the University of Texas-El Paso Feb. 12 and subsequent victory over the University of Tulane two days later came with more than just a sigh of relief.
The women's basketball team came home for the first of a four-game home stretch tonight against the University of Texas-El Paso. The game turned out to be a near repeat of their last match-up. Both teams stuck close to one another for most of the game, but a late game collapse by the Owls gave the visiting team a sizable final margin of victory, 69-57.From the start of the game, though, Rice showed their determination to bring their 11-game losing streak to an end, pulling out to an early 9-4 lead seven minutes into the game. The Miners were struggling with a scoring slump, shooting only 23 percent from the field after the first ten minutes.
After completing half of the season's conference games, the women's basketball team has yet to register a win against a Conference USA opponent. Now, the team will be forced to put the past behind them and acquire a new attitude while playing against some familiar faces. The first of those attempts turned out to be a failure last week when the Owls (5-18, 0-10 C-USA) had consecutive games against cross town rival University of Houston. After losing a close game at Tudor Fieldhouse on Jan. 28, Rice delivered an unimpressive performance at Hofheinz Pavilion on Saturday.
Junior Tara Watts led the Owls with 15 points this afternoon as the women's basketball team snagged its first victory in 11 games, gaining their first conference win and improving to 6-19 overall. Rice dominated the University of Tulane (14-12, 6-6 C-USA) in a complete role-reversal from the last time the two squads met. The Green Wave won that match up by 28 points on Jan. 11, whereas today the Owls led by as many as 18 points and finished the game with a 62-54 victory.
The women's basketball team made the short trip across town to the University of Houston today for part-two of their cross-town rivalry, in which they were looking to avenge a hard-fought loss at Tudor Fieldhouse on Wednesday. The two teams came out with strikingly different demeanors. While the Owls could not make more than a single bucket in the first six minutes of the game, the Cougs put up an easy 14. Houston accumulated a 14-point lead at 23-9, their largest of the game, with eight minutes left in the half.
There simply does not seem to be an answer when it comes to the question of what makes the women's basketball team tick. Though it remains a mystery as to who on the team will finish the game with two or 20 points, the storylines of most of their recent losses have been surprisingly similar. "We seem to come out really strong against every team we play," junior guard Tara Watts said. "We hold them down in points all in the first half. Sometimes, it is like we don't play to our potential in the second half, and that is where we have been losing it."
The women's basketball team (5-14, 0-6 C-USA) was knocked down twice last week, and with the 10-count almost over, they are showing no signs of getting up to fight again. After a crushing 77-52 loss at the University of Central Florida (6-13, 4-2 C-USA) on Jan. 22 and a demoralizing 65-50 loss at home against the University of Southern Mississippi (12-7, 5-1 C-USA) on Sunday, the last place Owls are putting their hopes on the return of freshman point guard D'Frantz Smart. Though Smart is listed as day-to-day, she said that she is ready to play as soon as the coaches let her, even though she is currently walking with a brace on her foot. She was expected to make her return yesterday on the road against the University of Tulsa, but the results of that contest were not available at the time this article went to press.
The women's basketball team fell to the University of Houston Wednesday night at Tudor Fieldhouse in the first of two back-to-back match-ups between the cross-town rivals. The loss keeps Rice winless in nine conference games, and moves them to 5-11 overall.Freshman Megan Elliot and junior Tara Watts made consecutive three-pointers to start the scoring for Rice and tie the game at six after five minutes of play. Houston then scored five unanswered points before freshman Brianna Hypolite grabbed an offensive rebound to make the score 11-8 with 13:11 left in the first half.
Even the best teams need to be lucky sometimes to keep winning. The opposite can be said of the women's basketball team. The Owls (5-12, 0-4 Conference USA) have been struggling throughout the season to string together solid, 40-minute performances, byt even when they succeed, adversity finds a way to catch up with them. The first of a series of setbacks occurred last week, when freshman point guard D'Frantz Smart sprained a foot ligament and was forced to sit out for the first time in her college career. Smart leads the team in scoring and assists, but also plays a leadership role and is currently out on a day-to-day basis.
After a decisive victory against George Washington University last week, it seemed as though the women's basketball team was on an upswing, but youth and inconsistency once again undercut the Owls' efforts. Rice traveled to El Paso last Friday to take on the University of Texas-El Paso in the first conference game of the season. From the start, the Owls seemed to carry with them the momentum from the win against GW: For the fourth time in two seasons, Rice carried a halftime lead into the locker room.
One step forward and two steps back is an approach men's basketball coach Ben Braun hopes will not last in Rice's struggle to find its identity on the court. When students left after final exams in mid-December, the basketball team stayed on the court for a six-game stretch during which they took on some of their most challenging opponents of the year. On Dec. 17, before the Owls took on sixth-ranked University of Oklahoma and one-loss Texas A&M University, they had to take on another university known better for academic rather than athletic strength: Luxury cars filled the parking lot when Harvard, an undersized squad known for its numerous perimeter threats, came to town.
After a five-game road trip that seemed even longer after numerous double digit losses, the women's basketball team may want to heed one of golf's oldest bits of advice: step up and swing without thinking about it. That is exactly what they did upon coming home to Tudor Fieldhouse on Monday, facing George Washington University only 24 hours after an embarrassing 31 point loss to University of Texas-San Antonio.
Two hard-fought games in different venues resulted in two separate outcomes for the women's basketball team in the past several weeks. A second-half surge was enough to give the home team a win against Furman University at Tudor Fieldhouse on Nov. 25, but the Owls could not prevent the University of Arkansas - Little Rock from taking a home victory of its own the Saturday afterwards. Freshman point guard D'Frantz Smart stood out as the scoring leader for Rice in both games. She also registered six assists in each game, along with five rebounds against Furman and six against UALR, despite being the shortest player on the court.
At a Wednesday press conference, athletics director Chris Del Conte officially announced that Rice had accepted an invitation to play in the 2008 Texas Bowl Reliant Stadium on Dec. 30 at 7 p.m. The game will be the final chapter in the saga of a senior class that has made an imprint on nearly every column of the football team's history books. "To be able to come and have our student athletes, our fans, our faculty, and students to participate in a bowl game right here in the city of Houston, we couldn't ask for anything better," Del Conte said. "Rice belongs in a bowl and not on a plate."
For the first time in school history, the Owls answered the all-too-important question: Whose house is this? Tudor Fieldhouse was filled with students and fans to watch the first home game in the new facility last Friday.IN PHOTOS: OPENING WEEKEND AT TUDOR FIELDHOUSE
A new home, a new look, and five new freshmen on the court are all reasons that the 2008-2009 Owls are looking forward to the future. In their lone exhibition match last Thursday the Owls delivered a convincing 81-56 win against Houston Baptist University, showcasing the prospects for the coming season, before getting ready for their home opener against California State University-Northridge tonight. While both players and coaches are excited to prove themselves on the court as the first game inside the newly built Tudor Fieldhouse approaches, they are even more excited about the new court itself.
