Overtime performance betrays Owls in loss to Blazers
It might take a long gander at the Conference USA basketball schedule to find anyone facing the conference tournament and regular-season champion in consecutive games.
Rice has with Middle Tennessee State and UAB, and interestingly enough, the Owls were charged with passing the same test against both — finish.
Rice was close but not close enough once again in an 88-81 overtime loss to UAB on Saturday night at Tudor Fieldhouse.
UAB got a clutch 3-pointer from Denzell Watts with 2.5 seconds left to break a 73-73 tie. On the other end, Rice’s Egor Kou- lechov put up a 3-pointer in just enough time as he was fouled with 0.6 seconds left and hit all three free throws to force overtime.
But there were no heroics left for overtime, where Rice was 1-for-7 from the field with four turnovers.
“You just can’t panic,” Rice coach Mike Rhoades said. “Five minutes is a lot of time. The key to overtime is you put so much pressure on the defense because they don’t want to make a mistake but you catch them in a mistake. We didn’t do that. Part of it was we just gave them the ball. Gave them opportunities.”
Frustrations boiled over as the teams shook hands after the game. There was a scuffle and coaches had to separate the teams.
“Guys were going back and forth at each other in overtime and I think it just carried on to the handshake line,” Rhoades said. “It’s frustration by everybody. It’s fatigue. I was mad at our guys because we don’t do that.” Koulechov soars
Koulechov led Rice with 29 points and Marcus Evans added 23.
Rice (11-6, 1-3 Conference USA) gave Middle Tennessee, last year’s conference tournament champion, all it could handle Thursday before a 28-5 run to open the second half made the Blue Raiders victorious.
There were some similarities against UAB on Saturday. Rice led for 15 of the first 20 minutes with a margin as large as nine and only trailed for 46 seconds, but it went into halftime tied at 36.
This time instead of playing from behind, Rice was in a seesaw affair with the defending regular-season conference champions.
But there was a sequence that crippled Rice.
A bank-shot 3-pointer from UAB’s William Lee tied the game at 66 with 3:51 remaining, essentially pushing reset on the game.
Chad Lott hit one of two free throws to give Rice the lead at 67-66.
Lee answered again for UAB with a jumper, but Hakeem Baxter stole the ball back immediately off the in-bounds pass for a layup and 3-point play after he was fouled. UAB had a 71-67 lead with 2:47 left off a five-point swing. But it didn’t deter Rice. Evans’ subsequent 3-pointer regained some momentum for Rice, but Lee found his way to the free-throw line for two to keep the Blazers ahead.
Rice’s Marquez LetcherEllis responded by sinking one of two free throws for a 73-71 deficit with 1:21 left.
Then, a player who’s been big all season for the Owls stepped up.
Koulechov’s spinaround and layup tied the game with 14 seconds remaining. Watts’ 3-pointer looked like too much to overcome, but Koulechov found his way to the freethrow line and showed no nerves in hitting all three to force overtime. But Rice couldn’t get revved up again in the extra session. Must retain intensity
Learning to finish is the next step for Rice.
“We play well in the first half but then kind of take the foot off the pedal,” Koulechov said. “We have to learn. We’re still a young team. We’re a long ways from where we want to be. We just have to keep learning from those experiences.”