Owls embrace mantra of ‘live by 3, die by 3’
Team has lost seven of its last nine but hopes approach leads to wins
The last decade has been marked by a shift in the way basketball is played.
The 3-point revolution has been well documented: “Teams are shooting more 3-pointers than ever.” “Kids want to be like Steph Curry.” “Live by the 3, die by the 3.” All of that and more has been said about 3-point shooting’s takeover.
“It’s a fun way to play basketball,” Rice’s Riley Abercrombie said. “Everyone likes to shoot 3s. It’s a good feeling to see one go in.”
That revolution seems to have affected almost every team at every level, but few have embraced it like the Owls have.
The Owls have lost seven of their last nine — in part to missing several key players from COVID-19 issues and injuries — but looking at the box score from Saturday’s loss at Western Kentucky, the idea of depending on the 3 comes into view. Rice took 32 of its 61 shots from deep, which has become a common theme the team this season.
Through 22 games, the Owls have taken 25 or more shots from beyond the arc 18 times. They’ve taken at least 45 percent of their shots from deep 15 times and at least 50 percent 10 times.
It’s not that they go “hunting for 3s,” as Travis Evee puts it. They try to play in the flow of the game, but often that’s just the way the game flows.
“It’s who we are. It’s how we recruit, it’s how we play and we have terrific shooters,” coach Scott Pera said after a win over Southern Miss on Feb. 6. “I want them to shoot with confidence. I give them the green light, and they know that.”
The players take advantage of that green light every game, making them one of the premier 3-point shooting teams in the country.
Rice ranked fourth nationally in 3-pointers attempted (630) and fifth in 3pointers made (234) after Saturday’s games. The Owls’ 37.14 3-point percentage ranked 46th, though only 13 teams ahead of them were within 200 attempts.
On an individual level, Quincy Olivari and Evee are by far the team’s top deep threats. They are the only players shooting above 40 percent from 3 (44.2 and 42.7, respectively), and they both rank in the top 25 nationally in attempts (ninth and 19th), makes (fourth and ninth) and percentage (15th and 23rd).
Right now, this team goes as those two go. The Owls are 8-3 on the year when Olivari and Evee combine for 15 or more 3-point attempts, so if they’re hot, Rice has a shot in any given game.
“Not only is it helping get points on the board, but it makes more space, makes teams have to run around and guard Quincy and Travis running off screens, which tires people out,” Abercrombie
said. “It just helps us in pretty much all facets of the game.”
Rice is also stocked with shooters outside of Olivari and Evee.
Abercrombie is the only other Owl that has taken over 100 shots from deep, but Chris Mullins (who has
missed the last seven games) and Cameron Sheffield (a freshman who has earned most of his minutes in Mullins’ absence) have both taken over 40 and knocked them down at a 35plus-percent clip (35.4 and 38.1, respectively).
“I’ve been on a couple
teams that shoot a lot of 3s, but this is definitely a team that has a lot of great shooters,” Evee said. “I mean, it’s one of our strengths. We’re going to play to our strengths.”
And then there’s Max Fiedler, the 6-foot-11 sophomore with impeccable court vision and playmaking ability. Much of Rice’s offense runs through Fiedler in the high post, and because defenders have to respect him from mid-range, the rest of the court opens up.
There’s a reason he leads the team with 85 assists. Surround a big guy with shooters, and the offense will prosper. Or better yet, give shooters a big who can create, and the offense will flourish.
The Owls’ record isn’t where they would like it to be, but a number of factors outside of 3-point shooting go into winning a game.
Still, packing the court with shooters and believing the shots will fall is a huge part of the way Rice’s offense runs, and it hopes that’s a formula that will lead to success.
“It’s great because you can’t focus on one person,” Olivari said. “It’s some teams where you just have a couple shooters, and if you take them out and just make everybody else shoot, you’ll have a good chance of winning. But with us, anybody can shoot. So you have to play us honest, and we just got to knock them down.”