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Basketball falls in opener to Oregon State

By Kevin Mohanram     11/25/14 8:31am

The Rice University men’s basketball team lost their season opener to Oregon State University this past Friday, Nov. 14, 54-67, bringing their record to 0-1 overall. The Owls were outscored 22-32 in the first half and 32-35 in the second half by the Beavers.

Rice connected on 16 of 52 field goals in the game, including 8 of 29 from beyond the three-point line. The Owls did record over 90 percent free throw percentage however, knocking down 14 of their 15 attempts.

Senior forward Seth Gearhart led the way offensively, scoring 14 points. Gearhart shot 4-11 in the game, including 3-6 from the three-point range. Junior point guard Max Guercy led the team in assists with eight, and sophomore center Andrew Drone recorded a career-high eight rebounds in his first start. Freshman guard Bishop Mency recorded double figures in his first collegiate game, scoring 11 points off the bench in 17 minutes.



Gearhart said the team performed well at times, but they can improve on their in-game consistency.

“We did some things good and we played well in spurts,” Gearhart said. “But our focus wasn’t consistent. Because of that, we allowed them to do some things we didn’t want them to do. We’re just going to work on focusing on the little things and staying consistent.”

Head Coach Mike Rhoades said he was disappointed with the loss but is looking forward to winning the next game. 

“We’re expecting to win the next game,” Rhoades said. “We have to get better. We did some good things in the game, but we just weren’t consistent enough to win on the road … We had some rookie mistakes. We had some guys [whose] shots weren’t falling. We didn’t play through misses and stuff like that. We just have to continually improve and keep working to get better.” 

The Owls have their home opener on Wednesday, Nov. 19, against Prairie View A&M University. The Panthers are 0-2 on the season and are coming off consecutive double-digit losses to Texas Christian University and Oklahoma State University.

Gearhart said the team is playing more exciting basketball than before and is hoping fans come to the opener.

“Everyone should come out because we’re going to play a style of basketball that’s fun to watch,” Gearhart said. “We’re going to get up and down. We work really hard and we just want to show off all the work that we’ve done. 



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