
Place your bets now on Rice women’s basketball
One year ago this week, the Rice women’s basketball team beat the University of Mississippi by 13 points to win the Women’s National Invitational Tournament. That team, of course, looked very different from the team that ended their season two Fridays ago with a loss to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in the quarterfinal of the Conference USA tournament. Following their WNIT win, head coach Tina Langley was poached by the University of Washington, and four of the team’s five starters transferred to schools in bigger conferences. What was left was a roster that returned only one senior and three upperclassmen, under the guidance of a first-time head coach.