Owls put Miners out of misery early on

Rice cruised to a 56-42 victory over UTEP in a contest of contending Conference USA teams at Tudor Fieldhouse on Friday night.

Rice (15-3, 5-1 C-USA) jumped out to a nice early lead and combined that with a strong start to the second half to put away the game with a full quarter to play. The Owls are looking to regain their rhythm after Florida International put an end to an eightgame winning streak Jan. 13.

“I thought it was a tremendous all-around team win, and everybody came in ready to play and made big contributions,” Rice coach Tina Langley said.

Rice went ahead 11-2 when Erica Ogwumike hit from downtown after a driving feed from junior Nicole Iademarco early in the first quarter. The Miners (12-7, 3-3) chipped away at their deficit, though, drawing to within four points with four minutes left in the first half largely by forcing Rice into challenging shots.

Wendy Knight sought to recapture the Owls’ momentum as halftime neared. The senior guard knocked down a 3-pointer to push Rice’s lead to 10. The Miners, who shot just 16.7 percent from the field in the second quarter, trailed 29-15 at halftime.

“We had three days to prepare for this team, so we all studied our scouts really well and we were ready to go,” Knight said. “The team brought energy and we came out strong and confident, which is something we’re really working on this year.”

The Owls lead the conference in 3-pointers made and are second in 3-point shooting percentage. They justified their conference ranking, shooting 44 percent from behind the arc in the game and using them to mount a 21-point advantage by the end of the third quarter.

UTEP cut the margin to 15 points, but another Knight 3 put Rice up 49-31.

“Depth helps tremendously because we have so many oneday turnouts,” Langley said. “When we’re able to play more numbers, that really helps us to be able to battle in conference play.”

Iademarco tied for team scoring honors with 13 points. Ogwumike registered a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Knight added 11 points.

The victory is Rice’s 11th in a row at home and leaves it tied for second, a half-game back in the C-USA standings. Up next is Old Dominion (4-17, 2-5) at Tudor on Sunday.