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January 23, 2004 > Sports > Junior trio leads men’s basketball rout, 80-40

Junior trio leads men’s basketball rout, 80-40

By Adam Tabakin | Thresher Editorial Staff

The men’s basketball team sent a message to the rest of the Western Athletic Conference Tuesday with a resounding 80-40 victory over Southern Methodist University before a packed student section at Autry Court.

The 175th meeting between the two schools was the most lopsided, as the Owls sent the Mustangs to their third-worst defeat in school history. The victory also snapped an eight-game losing streak in the series for Rice, which last beat SMU in 1999.

The Owl victory came on the heels of a 74-68 defeat at the University of Tulsa Saturday, when Rice got off to a horrific start, falling behind 31-8.

Junior guard Walt Chancellor said he hopes Tuesday’s win provides a spark for Rice on this weekend’s road trip to Fresno State University last night and the University of Nevada tomorrow night.

“This win was crucial for us, because we reasserted our brand of basketball after a tough loss at Tulsa,” Chancellor said. “We need to continue doing the things that made us successful [Tuesday] to win the games on this difficult road trip.”

Fresno State and Nevada are two of Rice’s biggest rivals for the conference title, so the trip is especially important. Two wins would leave the Owls, currently 12-4 on the season and 4-1 in WAC play, in at least a first-place tie, but two losses could drop Rice to a three-way tie for fourth place.

Head coach Willis Wilson (Will Rice ‘82) said the Owls are up to the challenge on the West Coast road trip but must be more prepared than they were against Tulsa in Saturday’s debacle.

“We know what can happen when you go on the road and you don’t come ready to play, and that’s a lesson that we’re going to have to deal with,” Wilson said. “Right now, it’s about learning how to deal with success. We can beat anybody we play if we play, but if we let our guard down, we’re as vulnerable as anybody.”

Fresno State entered last night’s contest with a 5-1 record in conference play, while preseason favorite Nevada currently holds a record of 3-3 in the WAC but has a key non-conference victory over then-No. 6 Kansas.

The Owls came out flat Saturday, falling behind by more than 20 points in the early going. Because the game was televised nationally on ESPN2, junior guard Brock Gillespie thought Rice’s performance was especially disappointing, because the Owls failed to execute.

“We felt like we let the program down at Tulsa,” Gillespie said. “We had the perfect gameplan ready; we just didn’t do our part.”

Since that rough start, however, the Owls have outscored their opponents by a commanding 140-83 margin, which included jumping to a 29-10 advantage early in Tuesday’s game.

“We were pretty anxious to come out there from the start [against SMU],” Gillespie said. “The players took a lot of ownership tonight.”

Rice started off hot against SMU and never looked back, jumping out to a commanding 18-3 lead before the Mustangs first made a field goal. The Owls took a 44-25 lead into halftime, led by junior forward Michael Harris’ 16 points on a perfect six-of-six shooting from the field, including three three-pointers.

“The first five minutes is how you dictate the tempo,” Harris said. “We just went out and took it to them, and my teammates fed me the ball when I was open, and I made the shots.”

Rice sustained its momentum throughout the second half, and SMU failed to hit a field goal in the last 9:22 of the game, as the Owls ended the contest on an 18-1 run. For the game, Rice outshot SMU from the field 56 percent to 25 percent, going 10-of-18 from three-point range. Both Harris and Gillespie finished the game with 20 points. Conversely, the Mustangs hit only 13 of 53 shots from the field while turning the ball over 20 times.

“It’s certainly the kind of night that we want to become accustomed to,” Wilson said.

The win also means the Owls still have not lost consecutive games since Feb. 2002; Harris attributes this trend to teamwork and effort.

“After a loss we get upset, and we put in the time,” Harris said. “Everybody’s really been playing together, and we’re starting to really get a feel for each other and realizing what it takes to win.”

Wilson also credited the above-average student turnout with making Autry Court such a difficult place to play for opposing teams.

“We want to make this as tough a place to play as there is in our league,” Wilson said. “We had great, great student support tonight. The things that we talk about as a program — we talk about being disciplined and being confident and being proud, and I think that performance tonight is something the students can be proud of, and hopefully something they want to be a part of every night.”

Students in attendance were rewarded with the opportunity to see sophomore forward J.R. Harrison convert a rare four-point play as he made a pair of free throws following an intentional foul on a layup. Despite the large margin of victory, the game’s final minutes were still entertaining, as the rarely-seen quintet of Chancellor, sophomore forward Jason Bridges, freshman forward Greg Killings and freshmen guards Arthur Culver and Jason Okrzesik finished out the game.

Wilson said that if Rice maintains the same intensity as they showed Tuesday night, his team will be able to make it to the NCAA tournament in March.

“These guys have made a decision,” Wilson said. “They want to be winners — they want to go to the big dance. We’re a long way away from that, but if we keep playing like we did tonight, we’re going to have a great shot at it.”

End of article

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