For years, sports fans have tried to explain why it's so much easier to win at home. The rims are still as high and the free-throw line is just as far as away, but there is just something about playing in your home gym that makes it easier to score points.
Houston made history last Saturday morning when, for the first time ever, the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon races for both men and women were held on the same course, on the same day. For the competitors, the road to the London 2012 Olympic Games began in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center on the Avenida de las Americas. In just a few short hours, the course outlined throughout the Space City determined which three men and women would represent Team USA on the biggest athletics stage in the world.
After a heartbreaking loss to Texas Tech University in last May's NCAA championships, the Owls have been waiting for their chance to get back on the court. Rice wants to prove all the doubters wrong and show that it does have the players and the talent to win Conference USA and make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.
At the Leonard Hilton Invitational held at the University of Houston last Friday, the men's track team didn't even have to go the distance to come away with a solid performance in the meet. With only one participant in the mile and no participants in the 5,000-meter run, Head Coach Jon Warren (Jones '88) did not see the need for the distance runners to compete at the year's first indoor meet, preferring to eschew the element-free environment in favor of more practice for his runners.
Entering the winter break with a 6-2 record, Head Coach Ben Braun and the Rice men's basketball team went to work against an increasingly difficult non-conference schedule following an 11-day layoff for final exams.
While the 2011 men's track season was filled with the usual ups and downs, one thing that Head Coach Jon Warren and his team could take away from last year was the ability of the team to improve drastically from the indoor to the outdoor season, as evidenced by their sixth-place finish at the Conference USA Indoor Championship and a fourth-place finish at the C-USA Outdoor Championship. With the majority of their main scorers heading back to the track for Rice, the Owls are looking toward 2012 as a season with plenty of promise.
While many Rice University students were at home, the Blue and Gray continued to compete in several swimming events throughout late December and early January. Right after finals, the women's team headed to San Antonio to compete in the University of Incarnate Word Christmas Invitational. After three days of competition, the Owls finished a strong second out of six teams. Rice took four of the top nine spots in the 100-yard freestyle. Sophomore Chelsea Fong finished third overall with a career-best 50.87 seconds. Freshman Casey Clark was fifth (52.23 second prelims), while sophomore Karina Wlostowska (52.83 second prelims) and senior Allison Godbe (52.70 seconds) were eighth and ninth, respectively. After winning the 500-yard freestyle on Saturday's opening round of the three-day meet, freshman Erin Flanigan completed a victory in the mile on Monday, leading a 1-2 finish for Rice, in which she was the only finisher to break the 17-minute mark at 16:55.91. Freshman Madison Livingston scored big for the Owls with a career-best 2:20.86 to take third in the 200-yard breaststroke. In the 200-butterfly the trio of Flanigan (fifth), Clark (seventh) and senior Shelby Bottoms (eighth) all made the finals of the 200-yard butterfly. However, the tournament was capped off just as impressively, as the Owl foursome of freshman Marissa Konicke, Godbe, Fong and Clark closed out the meet by winning in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a season-best 3:24.92. This impressive feat helped secure a second place overall finish for the Owls.
After looking like a team that was turning a corner, over break the Rice women's basketball team regressed, struggling to close out contests that could have certainly been victories.
The first few weeks back at Rice University bring varying levels of stress. While most students are simply trying to figure out which of their classes they will be able to skip the most, Head Coach Jim Bevan and the women's track team are beginning their indoor season today at Yeoman Fieldhouse for the Leonard Hilton Invitational. The team, while rife with potential talent, will need to replace key performers in nearly all events.
After winning the season opener against a simply overmatched University of New Orleans squad, the men's basketball team hosted three more non-conference opponents at Tudor Fieldhouse before making the Thanksgiving weekend trip to South Padre Island where the competition grew tougher.
With an NCAA tournament bid on the line, the volleyball team faced its most important match of the season as it went across town to play its archrival, the University of Houston (19-11, 12-8 C-USA). To start conference play earlier this season, the Cougars came into Tudor Fieldhouse and embarrassed the Owls with a 3-0 sweep. The Owls vowed to play harder and get their revenge, but ended up falling short 3-2, n a riveting five-set match.
After a disappointing 1-2 start, the much-lauded women's basketball team finally started playing up to its potential on its recent trip to Chicago before coming back to Tudor Fieldhouse.
The 2011 football season ended with just as many questions as it started with, as the mediocre 4-8 season did little to prove to die-hard fans that Head Coach David Bailiff is the future of the program. With the disappearance of junior running back Sam McGuffie, another mid-season quarterback change, and a still struggling defense, it's hard to find silver lining in the campaign that yielded little more to celebrate than wins against three bottom-tier Conference USA teams and against a Purdue University team on a miraculous blocked kick.
After trailing at halftime against an inferior opponent in their season opener a year ago, the men's basketball team looked to establish their dominance early on in the first game of the 2011-12 season against the University of New Orleans (0-2). Just how long would it take for them to do so? All of 10 seconds.
It was a tale of two meets for the men's and women's cross country teams at the NCAA South Central Regional held last Saturday in Waco, Texas. On one hand, the women's team fully expected to place among the top three to four teams and have a chance at an at-large bid to the NCAA Championship Meet on Monday, while the men were just hoping to crack the top 10. Unfortunately, the women were on the outside looking in, finishing one point out of fourth place, while the men's sixth-place finish came as somewhat of a surprise considering the team's tough Conference USA Championship meet.
Despite such high expectations, the women's basketball team got off to a disappointing start, losing their first two games before beating Houston Baptist Univerity Wednesday night in Tudor Fieldhouse.
After beating Purdue University earlier in the season, it was thought that the stigma when playing against major conference teams had disappeared for the football team. The team was hoping to go 2-0 against Big 10 teams this season – what would surely have been a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing campaign. Northwestern University, a mediocre Big 10 team, had other plans when the Owls traveled to Evanston, Ill. this past weekend.
While the volleyball team has found itself near the top of the conference standings due to their conference record, their subpar overall record has given the other top Conference USA teams reason to doubt the Owls legitimacy. With conference leaders the University of Tulsa (25-5, 16-1 C-USA) and rival Southern Methodist University (13-16, 9-8 C-USA) in town for the last Rice home stand of the season, the seniors had their chance to prove they deserved some recognition in conference. However, the Golden Hurricane swept into Houston and took care of the Owls to end all dreams of winning the conference. The team still sent the seniors off with a bang as they beat SMU for the second consecutive time this season on Senior Day.
After a successful home meet the week prior, the swim team headed north for two consecutive meets against Texas Christian University and the University of North Texas. However, victory was not on Rice's side, as the team fell short in both outings. First, it was the Horned Frogs that claimed a 159-126 non-conference dual meet win over the Owl swimmers on Friday evening in Fort Worth. Although Rice won six of the meet's 16 events overall, TCU won eight swim races and both springboard diving events, as Rice does not have any divers on its roster.
Expectations are higher than they've ever been for the Rice women's basketball team this season. After a surprising 18-13 regular season and a berth in the Women's National Invitational Tournament during the 2010- 2011 campaign, Head Coach Greg Williams (Hanszen '70) finds himself in the unfamiliar position of leading a team that is going to compete for a Conference USA title.
