Men's basketball hoping to snap winless streak against Southern
A week ago, things were looking up for Rice.
Coming off a victory over Southern Methodist University, the Owls stood at 2-1 in the Southwest Conference, with the only loss being a narrow one against the University of Houston.
A weekend road trip to Texas A&M University and Texas Christian University seemed a prime opportunity for Rice to continue building for their run for the final SWC title, considering both teams are winless in conference play.
The trip proved to be a disaster, however. Plagued by a failure to establish its offensive system, the Owls dropped a 78-56 decision to the Aggies Saturday and an 80-71 decision to the Horned Frogs Monday, allowing both foes to enter the virgin territory of SWC victories on the young season.
Rice (9-7 overall, 2-3 in the SWC) now finds itself in the morning after, forced to regroup and refocus.
For the Owls, this comes in the form of a week off before they host Southern University on Monday at 7:35 p.m.
"We kinda drifted apart as a team," Owl guard Tom McGhee said. "Right now, having a lot of time off, we're getting our togetherness back. It's not a state of emergency, just little things we have to work on. Come Monday, we'll be ready. We'll be back."
Head Coach Willis Wilson said "We will have to work on the things that we always work on. We have a good team. If you score, you take away fast-break opportunities. And if you can score, that forces them to score.
"If you score, you can control the tempo of the game. Those are three good reasons to work on our offense."
Against TCU (10-9 overall, 1-3 in SWC), Rice's downfall was a series of scoring droughts.
The Owls' two leading scorers, McGhee and Shaun Igo, each went over 20 minutes without scoring a basket. The overlap of their scoreless strings resulted in a 19-0 Horned Frog run late in the first half and early in the second half that decided the game.
McGhee hit a jumper with 8:40 to play in the first half to give Rice a 19-14 lead and did not again crack the scoresheet until he hit two free throws with 7:07 remaining in the game.
McGhee, who hit a three-pointer with 21 seconds left for his only basket from the floor in the second half, finished with 26 points, but it was a hollow 26.
Igo, who was not yet totally recovered from an injury that caused him to miss four games, was held scoreless until 15:20 remained in the game. He finished with 10 points and 13 rebounds.
Although Robert Johnson (14 points) and Kevin Nanney (12 points) were able to pick up some of the slack, the Owls missed the contributions of their top scorers when they needed them the most.
The TCU players used this advantage to go on a run that turned a 25-18 Rice lead with 5:11 to go before halftime to a 37-25 Horned Frog advantage 3:03 into the second half. Rice cut the lead to five, 50-45, at the 10:16 mark and narrowed it to six twice after that, but the team never got any closer.
"As a team, we struggled on offense tonight," McGhee said. "Yeah, [Horned Frog guard Anthony] Burks held me. But we missed a lot of easy shots we normally make. And our rebounding situation did not help us at all. There were times when we played good defense, but then we'd let them get a second shot, and that defeats the purpose of defense."
Jeff Jacobs led TCU with 22 points. Juan Bragg added 19.
Against the Aggies, the Owls experienced a total offensive meltdown. Texas A&M's tight halfcourt defense allowed Rice few quality shots.
The Owls were limited to 39.6 percent shooting from the floor, including a 3-for-19 performance from three-point range
The Aggies (9-7, 1-3) pulled away midway through the first half and never slowed down.
McGhee was held to eight points, a season low. Igo and Eric Singletary led Rice with 10 points apiece.
The Owls will host Southern before returning to SWC play against Baylor University on Jan. 31.
Playing a non-conference game in the middle of the conference schedule can sometimes be a problem for teams, since the tendency is to focus on the conference games, to the exclusion of everything else.
Last season, however, the Owls defeated the Jaguars 80-71, in a game positioned similarly on the schedule.
McGhee thinks Rice will be properly focused this time."I think we'll be ready to play. The past two losses lit a fire under us. If we weren't playing as hard as we could have before that, now we will be.
"Now we have a whole week to prepare, not just for Southern, but for the rest of the conference games coming up. We feel that if we take care of what we can take care of, we have a chance to win the conference."
This item appeared in the Sports section of the January 26, 1996 issue.
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