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February 17, 2006 > Sports > Women’s basketball moves to fourth in C-USA

Women’s basketball moves to fourth in C-USA

By Amber Obermeyer | Thresher Editorial Staff

The women’s basketball team got its first and second Conference USA road wins this weekend, moving into a tie for fourth place in the league. Rice (11-12, 7-5 C-USA) has gone 5-1 since losing junior guard Krystal Frazier, then the team’s leading scorer, to a season-ending Achilles injury.

Rice is now tied for fourth place with the University of Southern Mississippi in the C-USA standings. The top four teams receive a bye in the conference tournament March 2-5. Playing one fewer game would be especially helpful to the Owls, who are shorthanded in the backcourt after season-ending injuries to Frazier and sophomore guards Maudess Fulton and Whitney McCauley.

“Getting a bye is very much a goal right now,” junior forward Samantha Stovall said. “We’re fighting fatigue, because we’re not used to having a lot of players on the court for 35 minutes.”

Rice currently controls its own destiny because of its win over Southern Miss in late January, but the Owls have a pair of tough games at home this weekend. They will face conference-leading University of Tulsa (19-4, 10-2) Sunday at 2 p.m. and second-place Southern Methodist University (13-11, 8-4) tonight at 7 p.m.

In games against SMU and Tulsa in January, Rice fell behind by more than 15 points in the second half before coming back to within five points late in the games. The Owls lost both games, but head coach Greg Williams (Hanszen ‘70) said those games should help the team at home, where they have gone a combined 8-0 against the Mustangs and the Golden Hurricane over the last four seasons.

“We fell short in both situations, but the fact that we came from double-digits behind in the second half to get back in those games gives us a lot of confidence going into playing them at Autry Court,” Williams said.

Junior forward Lauren Neaves has emerged as the Owls’ go-to player over the last six games — she has been the leading scorer in all but one, when she played just 20 minutes in Rice’s 51-point win at home against the University of Texas-El Paso. Neaves has averaged 21.2 points in the five games since, but she will face better competition at the post this weekend. SMU’s Janielle Dodds has averaged 17.4 points per C-USA game, third-best in the league, although Rice held her to 14 points on 5-14 shooting earlier this year.

Tulsa’s Jillian Robbins leads the league with 18.8 points and 13.1 rebounds per game, and she and Neaves have traded Western Athletic Conference and C-USA honors since both were freshmen in 2003-‘04.

“[Dodds, Robbins and Neaves] are the three premier inside players in the league, and I think they are probably the three leading candidates for player of the year,” Williams said. “Robbins is really quick and athletic inside. And against us, she hit two important shots from around the free throw line, which is usually not where she does her scoring. She has really stepped up and played well in big games.”

Neaves tied a career high with 29 points against East Carolina (14-10, 6-7) Feb. 6. And Rice has had four other players set career highs over the last six games, including 14 from Stovall in a 63-49 win at UTEP (14-11, 6-7) Friday. With Frazier’s playmaking ability gone, the Owls now have a more pass-oriented offense. The team’s three highest assist totals on the season have come in the last six games, including 21 and 19, respectively, against UTEP and in their 68-56 win over Tulane University (11-10, 5-7) Sunday.

“Roles have changed dramatically, and everybody is really stepping up their games,” sophomore forward Tiffany Loggins said. “There’s no selfishness at all — we’re always looking for the open player. I think we’re playing better than we have all season right now, which is kind of weird because we have so few people.”

Outside of Neaves, the team’s points come from different players every game. But the Owls’ defense has been a constant since Frazier, one of the team’s best perimeter defenders, went down. Rice has held C-USA opponents to just 35 percent shooting on the year — which is tied with Tulsa for the conference lead — and both the Miners and the Green Wave shot worse than 35 percent last weekend.

“Our defensive effort over the last six games has been, for the most part, exceptional,” Williams said. “Theoretically, we shouldn’t be winning this much after losing our leading scorer after the SMU game, but we’ve won five of six. And it was possibly a poor coaching decision on my part not to play [senior guard] Latrice Elder in the Houston game, [the team’s only loss].”

Elder has been battling a nagging knee injury throughout the season, but she played a combined 36 minutes last weekend, including 20 against UTEP.

“I can’t say enough about her,” Williams said. “We had to play her for more minutes in the UTEP game, so we didn’t think she was going to be able to play against Tulane. When she got off the plane, her knee popped and we had to take her in a wheelchair to the bus. But she’s just such a tough kid — she came back, played on Sunday and played really well.”

Williams said Wednesday that he was unsure whether or not Elder would be available this weekend, although freshman guard Catherine Flores is expected to be available for limited minutes. Flores has not played since Jan. 27 because of a partial tear to the anterior cruciate ligament in her knee.

Loggins, who averaged 5.1 points in the team’s first 15 games of the year and 10.5 over the Owls’ last eight games, said Williams never lost confidence in the team despite the injuries.

“Coach Williams makes you feel like you can make a shot even when you don’t feel like you can make it,” Loggins said. “Instead of saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I just lost Krystal, Maudess and Whitney,’ he said, ‘All right, you go in and you step it up. … He didn’t get down, and I know it helped me.”

Stovall said the injuries have given lesser-used players an opportunity to develop.

“We all came here on scholarship — we’re all Division I players,” Stovall said. “Before, when [non-starters] were in the game, they could just let the starters do their thing. But now everyone is stepping up and playing, and that’s what we need.”

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