Wednesday Sports Update: Cross-town rivals defeat Rice

By Yan Digilov     12/3/09 6:00pm

For the seventh straight time in a row, the Owls were overcome by their cross-town rivals the University of Houston in a 83-66 loss at Tudor Fieldhouse on Wednesday. The match at was Rice's Conference USA opener, a bad omen for coach Ben Braun's squad which is still trying to show signs of improvement from last season.Freshman point guard Tamir Jackson led Rice with 19 points, but only posted three assists and two turnovers, compared to 11 points, ten assists and two turnovers from his Houston counterpart Desmond Wade. The game high 23 points came from Cougar Guard Maurice McNeil who surprised the home team with his offensive outburst and contributed to a dominant 42 points in the paint, compared to Rice's 22.

"We gave up a couple successive scores inside," Braun said. "The slips and easy scores under the rim are backbreakers. I am not ok that we gave away shots at the basket."

Though the Owls finished the first half trailing by only four, 38-34, Coach Braun could not have been satisfied with a performance that looked sloppy and confused at times. Sophomore Connor Frizzelle opened up the scoring for Rice with a three-pointer that capped an 8-0 UH run to start the game.

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After the shaky start, Rice displayed spurts of big effort plays, which were unfortunately disrupted with lazy balls thrown away to UH defenders. However, strong perimeter shooting kept the score close, and a Frizzelle three-pointer gave Rice their first lead of the game seven minutes into the half with the score 16-15. Unfortunately, the two scores would be it for Frizzelle, and he finished with only six points.

Their time on top would also be short-lived as Houston fought back. The scored stayed close up to six minutes left in the half when Houston led 27-23, but a scoring drought from Rice gave Houston a 31-24 lead with 4 minutes left in the first.

After Jackson finally drove to the basket for some much needed offensive production, Rice fought to within two with 1:40 left in the half, and thanks to some hard fought points from Ghoram underneath the basket the score was 34-32.

But the vigor that got the game to within two would not stay for long. "We lost our confidence," Jackson said. "We got passive. That's what hurt us in the second half. If we stayed aggressive we could have kept up."

After getting stuffed by what seemed like three opposing players, junior Trey Stanton regained some of his pride with a three-pointer at the top of the key to start off the second half for the Owls. But that would be as close as Rice would get to their cross-town rivals.

The home team's turnover woes continued to haunt them, and Houston took an eight-point lead after four minutes of play that they would never relinquish. The lead would be as large as 19 with the score 66-47 halfway through the second.

Rice would get an unexpected jolt of confidence from sophomore Nate Shwarze when he forced Houston's point guard into a five-second violation with four minutes left. Jackson was quick to take the ball to the hole right after that, but the 77-56 lead was too formidable for Rice to overcome. Houston's offense held the ball at the top of the court between their gaurds for the remainder of the game and left South Main with a comfortable victory.

From start to finish, Houston seemed to control the tempo of the game, and unruly turnovers from Rice did not help their cause. Frizzelle led the team with four thrown away balls, which is more than double his season average, and the team collectively had 13 turnovers.

"It is about the team being more consistent," senior guard Cliff Ghoram said. "We have to be determined to be consistent and regroup in practice. It has to do with heart. I think heart is a big deal.

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