Owls’ return to court a welcome challenge
After long break, sweeping Hilltoppers helps with rust
The biggest story for Rice women’s basketball this weekend was its return to the court.
It isn’t common for a team undefeated in conference, battling to make the Top-25 and hoping for a spot in the NCAA tournament to have three straight weekends of games postponed.
The Owls had just finished a run of five doubledigit wins in six games. They scored less than 66 points just twice all season. Then, they were forced to go 27 straight days without a game.
So when they finally got the opportunity to face Western Kentucky, it was more about getting back to playing basketball than anything else.
“A lot of lessons that we can learn to be better from,” Rice coach Tina Langley said. “I’m excited that we had this big of a challenge. That we got a look at, ‘Where did we fall a little bit behind in those three weeks, where have we gotten better and how can we continue to push forward?’ ”
Of course, taking both games was the goal, which the Owls accomplished after a 77-74 win Saturday over the Hilltoppers.
Nancy Mulkey led Rice with 16 points in just 24 minutes, and Katelyn Crosthwait (4-of-5 from 3) and Sydne Wiggins chipped in 14 and 12, respectively. Raneem Elgedawy and Hope Sivori’s combined 45 points nearly won it for Western Kentucky, but back-to-back triples from Crosthwait with under a minute left put the Owls ahead to stay.
“We needed a game where there was some pressure on us and we need to execute and be efficient offensively as well as get some big stops,” Langley said. “I think this will make us so much better.”
This series wasn’t “make or break” for Rice. A loss to a good-not-great Western Kentucky wouldn’t sink any lofty goals this team might have.
The Owls just received their first vote in the USA Today Coaches Poll on Tuesday, and they’ve received votes in every Associated Press Top-25 Poll since Dec. 21. If the AP poll was stretched out, Rice would have been ranked 30th in the country on Feb. 1 and 31st on three other occasions.
This has been a great team all year, so coming off roughly four weeks without playing a game, a loss wouldn’t be the end of the world.
The Owls were still able to sweep the weekend series against a stingy Hilltoppers team. But Rice really looked like a team that hadn’t played in a month rather than the team that was so dominant early on.
However, this is still a team that’s only lost once this season to the now-No. 7 team in the country. It is same team that’s now won 43 of its last 45 conference games and 13 straight.
It has Langley, the sixthyear coach who has led the team to a stretch of fourstraight 20-plus win seasons and counting. It has Mulkey leading the team with 16.6 points, 7.7 rebounds and 3.4 blocks per game. And it has four shooters (Lauren Schwartz, Haylee Swayze, Crosthwait and Wiggins) who have taken at least 30 3-pointers this season and knocked them down at a 35plus-percent clip.
This team will likely see itself in the NCAA Tournament if it continues to win like it has won all season. It should be the Owls’ postseason goal.
But having just come off a long layoff and knowing another postponement can come at any second, getting back on the court was the first step for Rice. Completing the season (and continuing to win) comes next, and then the Owls can start thinking about their postseason aspirations.
“The theme of this season is ‘be ready,’ ” Langley said. “You never know what phone call you’re going to get, and if you learn to respond instead of react, if you take time to process the information and then just move forward, you’re going to be very successful.”