Rebuilding no longer: Owls hope for strong year
(08/23/12 12:00am)
This year's senior class of undergraduates - the class that matriculated in 2009 - has never watched a winning Rice football team.
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This year's senior class of undergraduates - the class that matriculated in 2009 - has never watched a winning Rice football team.
Football
Over the course of the past month, the Rice Owls took to the gridiron for their annual spring practices, taking an opportunity to hit the field to find out what they have coming into the next season. Capping two weeks of spring practices, the Owls were excited to play three scrimmages, and on March 30, the team had its annual Blue and Gray game, showcasing the offense against the defense.
In a mediocre season, the Owls met at least one of their goals - they got to play postseason basketball. After a finish just above .500, the Owls were invited to the Women's Basketball Invitational, a 16 team-postseason tournament that plays all games at home sites. The tournament, though less illustrious than last season's WNIT berth, gave the Owl seniors hope of one last flash of glory.
Mediocrity is not what the women's basketball team was looking for this year.
After three straight conference wins, things looked good for the Owls. They had some momentum, won some road games and were in the top few spots in the conference. Then they traveled to West Virginia, where it felt like everything came apart.
If you are going to be a good team, you have to beat the bad teams. That's exactly what the women's basketball team did when it took the floor this past week against two of the worst teams in C-USA, hoping to propel itself above .500 for the season.
Another week, another split for the Owls' women's basketball team – which is now 0-3 on the road inside Conference USA this season. While things could be worse – they have been able to win pretty reliably at home – the team is failing to live up to its billing as one of the best teams inside C-USA, since it is having difficulty leaving the pack in the middle of the standings.
For years, sports fans have tried to explain why it's so much easier to win at home. The rims are still as high and the free-throw line is just as far as away, but there is just something about playing in your home gym that makes it easier to score points.
After looking like a team that was turning a corner, over break the Rice women's basketball team regressed, struggling to close out contests that could have certainly been victories.
After a disappointing 1-2 start, the much-lauded women's basketball team finally started playing up to its potential on its recent trip to Chicago before coming back to Tudor Fieldhouse.
The 2011 football season ended with just as many questions as it started with, as the mediocre 4-8 season did little to prove to die-hard fans that Head Coach David Bailiff is the future of the program. With the disappearance of junior running back Sam McGuffie, another mid-season quarterback change, and a still struggling defense, it's hard to find silver lining in the campaign that yielded little more to celebrate than wins against three bottom-tier Conference USA teams and against a Purdue University team on a miraculous blocked kick.
Despite such high expectations, the women's basketball team got off to a disappointing start, losing their first two games before beating Houston Baptist Univerity Wednesday night in Tudor Fieldhouse.
After beating Purdue University earlier in the season, it was thought that the stigma when playing against major conference teams had disappeared for the football team. The team was hoping to go 2-0 against Big 10 teams this season – what would surely have been a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing campaign. Northwestern University, a mediocre Big 10 team, had other plans when the Owls traveled to Evanston, Ill. this past weekend.
At the start of the season, it appeared that veteran senior quarterback Nick Fanuzzi was destined to be holding a clipboard on the sideline and watching the Owls' (3-6, 2-4 C-USA) season unfold. After losing his starting position over the summer to sophomore Taylor McHargue, it looked like the University of Alabama transfer was essentially done as an integral player. He proved all of that wrong this past weekend in the homecoming game against the University of Texas at El Paso (4- 5, 1-4 C-USA), which ended with a 41-37 win for the Blue and Gray.
Expectations are higher than they've ever been for the Rice women's basketball team this season. After a surprising 18-13 regular season and a berth in the Women's National Invitational Tournament during the 2010- 2011 campaign, Head Coach Greg Williams (Hanszen '70) finds himself in the unfamiliar position of leading a team that is going to compete for a Conference USA title.
Heading into the game against the nationally ranked and undefeated University of Houston, starting quarterback Taylor McHargue had thrown for eight touchdowns so far this season. Last Thursday night, University of Houston quarterback Case Keenum threw nine touchdowns.
For the second straight week, Rice (2-5, 1-3 C-USA) simply did not look ready to play in the first quarter. In a winnable game, the Owls quickly fell behind – giving the Univer sity of Tulsa (4-3, 3-0 C-USA) momentum, and digging themselves into a pretty deep hole.
Another week, another tough loss for the football team, which was, for once, only a few key plays away from a well-fought victory. While it is a tough road trip up to Marshall University in West Virginia, the team that now sports a 2-3 record simply looked unprepared in the first half.