Owls tighten screws to eke out C-USA win
With under two minutes left to play, guard Ako Adams looked to the Rice bench and then held up four fingers.
Moments later, the ball traded hands around the left side of the court before finding forward Robert Martin, who slung a pass to Adams. The junior took his time before knocking down a 3-pointer to put Rice ahead by eight points with 95 seconds remaining.
Adams’ bucket — and a pair of late free throws — helped ther Owls defeat Southern Mississippi 73-65 at Tudor Fieldhouse on Thursday in a Conference USA matchup.
“To me it’s simple,” Rice coach Scott Pera said. “Our defense in the second half was the difference.”
After surrendering 103 points in their previous game — a conference-opening loss to North Texas — the Owls gave up just 23 points in the second half Thursday. They held Southern Miss to 29 percent shooting from the field and 22.2 percent from behind the arc in the half.
Rice (6-9, 1-1 C-USA) was whistled for just seven fouls in the game.
“We were listening to what coaches were telling us and we were trying to convert defense into offense,” guard Trey Murphy III said of the Owls’ 19-2 second-half run. “Just getting steals, getting rebounds and just pushing the tempo.”
Four Owls scored in doubledigits led by Adams’ 16 points.
Guard Tyree Griffin powered Southern Miss (8-6, 0-2) with a game-high 17 points and nine assists. Guard Cortez Edwards entered the game as one of C-USA’s top scorers. But Rice limited the Golden Eagles star to eight points. He did contribute 10 rebounds and three steals.
“We’re working really hard on (defense), and you never know when it’s going to kick in,” Pera said. “We really took a big step forward, I hope, defensively in that second half. We were really locked in.”
Pera was impressed by the Owls’ maturity as they clawed back into the game after Southern Miss went ahead.
Again, it was freshmen who helped fuel the effort through active defense, clutch buckets and a pair of high-flying dunks.
“I saw a shot go up and I noticed nobody boxed me out so I said, ‘Let me go in and try to dunk this thing,’ ” Murphy said of his put-back dunk that ignited the crowd at Tudor. “Got to give effort, that’s the main thing coach has been preaching.”