Wednesday Sports Update: Green Wave trip up Owls in overtime
After finally snapping a seven-game slide against East Carolina University on Saturday, the men's basketball team was looking to turn its season around against a struggling Tulane University Wednesday evening. But a night that looked like it would be the start of the team's redemption turned into disaster. Rice (7-13, 1-6 Conference USA) finished the night falling to Tulane (6-14, 1-6 C-USA) in overtime by a score of 79-74.Freshman forward Arsalan Kazemi led the Owls with 19 points and 13 rebounds. Junior center Trey Stanton contributed 16 points.
The Owls picked up just where they left off against ECU on Saturday with a dominant 11-2 run to start the first half. Early game momentum has been a real problem for the Owls, but with the initial jolt of energy the home squad gave itself a comfortable buffer for the rest of the half.
About 12 minutes into the game, Tulane made their first real challenge for that lead after a three-pointer and a quick steal leading to a fast break bucket brought the score to 20-17.
Running a solid 2-3 zone and holding a distinct size advantage, the Owls limited the Green Wave to outside shooting. But a few made threes and gritty play from Tulane tied the game at 24 with six minutes left in the first half.
Rice stood its ground. In an unusual move, Braun elected to put sophomore Nate Schwazre at point guard. With his coach's confidence, Schwarze helped the Owls distance themselves and regain momentum.
Freshman Tamir Jackson responded to the tied game by doing what he does best, driving to the basket and drawing defenders away from an open Stanton, who drained a three-pointer. After a defensive stop, Stanton put another quick two points on the board, easily handling 6'5" guard Kendall Timmons under the basket.
Rice continued to breakaway for the rest of the half, and a buzzer-beater Kazemi gave them a 37-28 lead at the half.
That lead was extended in the opening minutes of the second half, and it would turn out to be a buffer the Owls needed for the rest of the game.
Solid shooting inside the arc and unwavering pressure coming to the basket from Jackson gave the Owls a 13-point lead at 41-28 after only a minute of play.
But only a minute later, things started going wrong for the home team. Seemingly with the flip of a switch, the turnovers began flooding in.
A full-court press from Tulane hampered the Owls' ability to get set in their offense and resulted in some easy buckets for the Green Wave.
Momentum turned in the direction of the visitors, and Tulane clawed to within two points midway through the half, with the score 47-45.
Sophomore Connor Frizzelle gave the Owls a jolt of energy with a hard drive to the lane that resulted in the bucket plus one. But the Owls just could not rid themselves of a plague that hobbled the team, one that has continually forced them to play to the level of their competition.
Tulane tied the game at 52 with 6:00 minutes left in the game. After a back-and-forth between the squads, the Green Wave took a 58-56 lead two minutes later.
A 5-1 run from the Owls gave them a 61-59 lead with just under two minutes left to play. But Tulane picked up their man-to-man defense, and was able to completely disrupt the Rice's offense for the rest of regulation. It took one Green Wave jump shot to force the game into overtime.
It was an overtime period the Owls would like to forget, as they failed to score a field goal until 1:45 left in extra time. By then the score was 68-64, and that lead proved large enough for the Green Wave to handle.
The visitors spread the floor and finished the game with 18 overtime points through their isolation offense. Rice got to within three points after a Frizzelle three-pointer made it 74-71 with 24 seconds left. It was up to Tulane to make free throws for the rest of the game to ice the road victory, and the Green Wave delivered to seal their first conference win of the year.
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