Owls look to future as loss caps season
Much like Houston’s weather, the Rice basketball team had a tendency to go from hot to cold and back to hot when it came to shooting this season.
The inability to flip the switch one more time resulted in the Owls losing to Utah Valley 85-79 in the quarterfinals of the College Basketball Invitational at Tudor Fieldhouse on Monday night.
While the season-ending loss was disappointing, Rice (23-12) tied for the second-most victories in school history and eclipsed the 20-win mark for the first time in 13 years.
And the future could not be more promising for the Owls, who lose only one senior and return their entire starting lineup for next season.
With Egor Koulechov (14 points) and Marcus Evans (13) leading six players in double figures, Rice generated plenty of offense but had no answer in how to stop the hot-shooting Wolverines, who shot 30-of-60
(50 percent) from the field and hit 13 of their 31 3-point attempts. Ivory Young had 20 points and four 3-pointers to lead Utah Valley (1716).
The Owls got off to a strong start, hitting 75 percent of their shots to take a 15-7 lead.
However, Rice cooled off, and Utah Valley answered with an 11-0 run and never looked back as the Wolverines took a 45-37 halftime lead.
“When we’re hot, it seems like everything is going right,” a frustrated Evans said. “Sometimes we go in that slump, and it seems like we can’t do anything right. We live and die by that.”
Utah Valley (17-16) took its largest lead of the night when Jordan Poydras (14 points) sank a 3-pointer to open the second half.
Once again, the Owls Utah Valley 85, Rice 79 had to dig themselves out of a hole and almost succeeded.
Rice went back ahead 6766 on Evans’ layup with 8:53 remaining, and his 3-pointer about a minute later increased the lead.
But the Owls could not put the Wolverines away and always seemed to be playing catch-up.
Utah Valley roared back to take a 76-72 lead on consecutive 3-pointers by Hayden Schenck.
“They wanted to play fast just like us,” Koulechov said. “Shoot a lot of threes. They shoot a lot, they hit a lot. They really hurt us today. We didn’t do a good job guarding the 3-point line.”
And so Rice now will have some time to reflect before it begins preparing for a new season of high hopes and even higher expectations.
“We have to have a concentrated effort as a program now to get bigger and stronger and take the next step,” Owls coach Mike Rhoades said. “That’s taking that program and that plan that you have and enhance it and make it harder. Make it better.
“Because nobody is going to take us lightly now. We’re not the old Rice. But we have to do more.”