Owls’ second-half burst snaps five-game skid
“I’m ready for the next one! Feed me again!”
That was the only thought going through Rice guard Quincy Olivari’s mind as he drained back-to-backto-back 3-pointers in the first half, leading the Owls to an 88-62 win over Southern Miss on Friday at Tudor Fieldhouse.
Olivari was the main contributor to Rice’s offensive attack, scoring 29 points on 10-of-19 shooting from the field. Already the team’s leading 3-point shooter at 45.2 percent, Olivari was 6 of 11 from deep to help the Owls snap their five-game losing skid.
“(Olivari) didn’t play well last weekend (against North Texas), and he knows that,” Rice coach Scott Pera said. “He’s a great kid who’s trying to learn how to be a really good player, and today he was locked in to prove that that was who he’s going to be. Now it’s about being consistent.”
The Owls’ 88 points were their third-highest total since conference play began. Travis Evee (14), Mylyjael Poteat (12) and Riley Abercrombie (11) joined Olivari as double-digit scorers.
Olivari’s 3-point hat trick put Rice up 34-18 with 5:30 left in the first half, but Southern Miss managed to trim the lead to 10 going into the break.
The Golden Eagles would not go away to start the second half, getting the lead to nine on two DeAndre Pinckney free throws with 17:08 left. Thirteen seconds later, though, a Max Fiedler dunk off an assist from Cavit Ege Havsa sparked an 11-0 Owls run that put the game out of reach.
Cameron Sheffield followed up with two free throws, Abercrombie knocked down a triple and Poteat scored four of his career-high 12 points in the run.
“What’s crazy is, for the most part, we don’t even notice those big runs,” Olivari said. “… It was more like, we took a couple bad shots, started off slow, and then we just tell the guys, ‘Come on, let’s lock in on defense. Let’s get stops, let’s get stops.’”
Friday marked Havsa’s return after he missed Rice’s last three games. Averaging the most minutes off the bench and sitting in second on the team with 45 total assists, the grad transfer’s absence forced the other guards to take on more of the shot-creation responsibility.
But Havsa’s team-high six assists showed how much easier he makes things for the Owls’ offense when he’s out on the floor.
“He’s a great ball-handler, and especially me selfishly as a big, he always finds me with good passes to get easy buckets,” Poteat said. “It’s really great having him back.”
The Owls stopped their five-game losing skid and will face Southern Miss again at 2 p.m. Saturday at Tudor Fieldhouse.
“Not a whole lot changes for us,” Pera said. “It’s defend, rebound, share the ball. When we do that, we’re tough to beat. When we don’t, we get beat. And we’ve got to try and get through this one (Saturday).”