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The Rice Thresher
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by Ryan Keedy thresher staff
Now, with two starters - sophomore point guard Omar-Seli Mance and junior center T.J. McKenzie - out with injuries for the remainder of the season, the Owls are faced with the same questions. Since McKenzie was hurt Jan. 25 in a win over the University of Hawaii, the Owls have suffered three straight losses by double-digit margins. At 3-5 in Western Athletic Conference play, Rice runs the risk of losing touch with the top teams in the conference standings. "The dynamic of our team has changed over the course of the season," head coach Willis Wilson said. "We've gone from having some mature guys to being a very youthful team counting on some young guys to come through for us. They're getting a lot of good experience. The sophomores got a lot of good experience last year. The freshmen are still learning, and they're getting good experience right now." To fill the hole left by Mance, sophomore guard Michael Walton has seen a dramatic increase in minutes, and Tyndell, a junior, moved from small forward to guard. Freshman forward Yamar Diene and sophomore centers Ferron Morgan and Brandon Evans have tried to team up to replace McKenzie down low, but it's been with mixed results. In the three games since McKenzie's injury, the three big men have shot a combined 5-of-26 from the field, and the Owls were outrebounded by at least six rebounds in each game. Although their young players are gaining experience, the Owls lack a core group of veterans needed to build up the program. The majority of the team is still made up of underclassmen, and senior guard Mike Wilks is the only player who has seen consistent minutes over the past two seasons. "When you look at how young our team is, [you can see] that we're not a very experienced team," Wilson said. "[Senior] Erik Cooper is a mature, veteran player who hasn't played a lot of college basketball, certainly not as much as he would have liked or I would have liked. Shawn Tyndell is a veteran player that didn't play but two games a year ago. We've got a couple of guys that are mature, but Mike Wilks is the only guy that's really been through it consistently, year after year, in our entire program. "We're counting on maturity and trying to substitute that for experience in some cases. We're trying to substitute hustle and youthful enthusiasm for experience in other cases." Wilson said he's had to adjust his coaching style due to the inexperience of his players on the floor. "During the course of the games, you'll always hear me yelling 'ready, ready, ready, ready,'" Wilson said. "'Ready' means we have to have a sense of urgency about what we do. With veteran teams you don't have to say 'ready, ready, ready, ready.' You just tell them 'Hey, let's get ready, and let's go,' and they know how to do that." The coaches hope their young players are quick learners on the court and can be ready to pull out some wins at the WAC tournament less than four weeks from now. "Realistically, it's going to be tough for us to win the league right now," Wilson said. "But I think it's a realistic goal that we play better every night and win as many games as we can. [I hope] that when conference tournament play rolls around, we're a good enough team that people are going to have to play us, and that we're a good enough team to maybe win three games in a row."
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