Owls picked to win C-USA, host No. 13 Texas Tech Monday
The women’s basketball team is favored to win the championship in its debut season in Conference USA. Rice was picked to finish first by the league’s coaches, garnering seven first-place votes, while second-place University of Houston had five.
Rice has 11 of 14 players from returning its record-setting 2004-‘05 season, but just 1 of 4 coaches. When Cristy McKinney came to Rice in 1993, the Owls had never finished higher than fifth place in the Southwest Conference or advanced to the postseason. McKinney led Rice to six postseason appearances, including two Western Athletic Conference titles, before resigning April 18 to become the head coach at Clemson. Former assistant coaches Todd Steelman and Shanice Stephens joined McKinney in South Carolina.
Under new head coach Greg Williams (Hanszen ‘70), a former Rice basketball player, the Lady Owls will try to surpass last year’s 24-9 mark, including a 14-4 record in conference play. Williams has a 201-139 record as a college coach, with stints at both UH and Colorado State.
Junior forward Lauren Neaves and junior guard Krystal Frazier are foremost among the team’s returnees. They were the team’s two leading scorers last season.
“Every team in America would love to be able to return their top two scorers,” Williams said. “Lauren and Krystal are very valuable on the defensive end as well, so they’ll be the ones our opponents concentrate on trying to contain.”
The Lady Owls also retain five sophomores who should contribute noticeably this season. Three of them — center Valeriya Berezhynska, guard Kadie Riverin and guard Maudess Fulton — started the team’s two exhibition games, although Fulton tore her ACL in Friday’s exhibition game against the Houston Jaguars and will almost certainly miss the entire season.
And Rice also adds three freshmen — forward Emery Carter and guards Catherine Flores and Tiondra Wright — who hope to replace the production lost from the three seniors on last year’s roster. Annie Peck (Jones ‘05), Michelle Woods (Baker ‘05) and Eshombi Singleton averaged a combined 21.9 points, 15.2 rebounds and 5.8 assists in 2004-‘05, but Neaves said this year’s freshmen are very capable.
“We need build on last year, but we need to continue to move forward and not dwell on the past success,” Neaves, a pre-season all-conference selection, said. “Last year’s seniors will be missed, but we have plenty of excited underclassmen who are ready to fill spots. The freshmen are a great group of girls. They work really hard in practice, and they have a lot of different things to offer. They challenge us every day.”
The new C-USA brings together three conference champions from last year. Rice won the WAC, Marshall won the Mid-American Conference, and Central Florida took the Atlantic Sun Conference crown. Rice ended last season with an RPI of 33, meaning the Owls theoretically should have been seeded ninth in the NCAA tournament. However, Rice was seeded 11th in its region and drew a difficult first-round match-up against Georgia. Berezhynska said she hopes playing in the more highly regarded C-USA will bring the team more national renown. Rice did receive two votes in the ESPN/USA Today pre-season coaches’ poll.
“The conference switch will really help our national rankings,” Berezhynska said. “[And], it’s more fun to play with better teams. It’s also better for the fans, because they prefer to see the better competition.”
The Owls have not received votes in a pre-season national poll since 2002, when they were ranked in the top 25 nationally in some pre-season magazine polls. Rice validated this season’s recognition with a narrow six-point loss to Everyone’s Internet — a team that defeated 12th-ranked University of Texas 68-60 and 13th-ranked Texas Tech University 66-63 — Nov. 5.
After tonight’s season-opening game at Mississippi, Rice has an early chance to establish itself as a national contender with a game against Texas Tech Monday. The pre-season-ranked 2002-‘03 squad lost by just four points to the then-eighth-ranked Red Raiders in the teams’ last meeting at Autry Court, and Rice lost by only 11 points to the perennial power on the road last year.
Williams said he thinks playing at home can make the difference against quality opponents.
“It inspires the player if we have a large, loud crowd, and it has the extra effect of [unsettling] the opponent,” Williams said. “Autry is a small enough venue that the fans are practically right on top of the court, and [that] can be a huge advantage for us.”
Rice’s schedule also likely includes a home game against recent rival Louisiana Tech University, whom the Owls defeated twice last season en route to unseating the Techsters as the WAC champions. Both teams will have new coaches for this year’s game — former La. Tech head coach Kurt Budke also left his mid-major school for a high-profile job, taking a position at Oklahoma State. La. Tech will participate in the Gene Hackerman Invitational at Rice Dec. 2-3, and the teams will meet in the tournament final if both win their first-round games.
The Owls will host Wake Forest Dec. 22 in their final non-conference home game; non-conference road games include contests at Stanford, Marquette and Texas A&M.
The conference season begins Jan. 6 for the Owls, because C-USA holds its women’s conference tournament before the men’s event — unlike the WAC, which hosted both tournaments simultaneously.
McKinney never scheduled the pre-season second-place Cougars after the SWC broke up in 1996, so the teams’ only meeting in the last nine seasons was a National Invitation Tournament game in 2002, which Rice lost by two points at UH. The Cougars are one of five teams the Owls will play twice in the unbalanced C-USA schedule, with UH hosting Rice Jan. 15 at Hofheinz Pavilion before the teams play at Autry Court Feb. 3.
McKinney’s teams were marked by strong bench play and aggressive defense, and early signs indicate this year’s Williams team will also have those two characteristics.
“We’re going to be a very exciting team,” Williams said. “We’re going to be very aggressive defensively, and it’s going to be fun to watch.”
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