And yet another turnover. I believe that 5 TOs or charging calls in the last 2:30. Pathetic performance down the stretch.

Mullins travels.

Rice down 5 with under a minute.

Mullins travels "on the way to the cup.

Fordham sinks a 3.

67-75. Fordham's largest lead of the day. 0:53 left.

"That one hurt, I'm not going to lie."

Also: No Rice FGs in last 3:07.

Rice now down 8 with 53 seconds left.

This will be an awful loss to a bad A10 team.

Outscored 20-9 over the last 3+ minutes.

Fordham was picked last in the A10 preseason poll.

It could have been a not great but decent tourney with a win today but this just wastes the two previous efforts.

Mullins scores with 45 ticks left. Rice calls its last timeout.

Owls foul at 0:40.

74-84 ... Final.

Incredible!

One of the more embarrassing losses of the Pera era, for me. Not because of the opponent, because of the manner of the loss. 1.31 PPP for Fordham in the 2nd half. That's an abysmal, humiliating defensive performance against a bad offensive team.

I'm about done with Pera's inability to teach defense. Nothing matters - not his recruiting, talent identification, etc. - if you give up 70+ points to every single D1 team in the country. I don't know what the answer is. We desperately need Pera to work out because we need some form of continuity and we can't just keep starting over from the ground up. But holy hell, it's been 4 years and our defensive rankings have been: 294, 301, 261, 272 (soon to be much worse). It's abundantly clear that he doesn't know how to coach defense and it's just as clear that he doesn't know how to pick coaches who can.

There's no way to sugarcoat this one. Prior to the game, Massey had Fordham at #249.

(11-24-2021 07:30 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  There's no way to sugarcoat this one. Prior to the game, Massey had Fordham at #249.

I’ll sugarcoat it… cause that’s what I do.

249 is Q3.
With the win Fordham ascends 247->223 in KenPom while Rice falls 147->155 (and remains a solid Q2 team).

Still a disappointing loss on a neutral court to a team ranked well below us.

But not the end of the world and not going to ruin our season.

(11-24-2021 05:47 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(11-24-2021 05:36 PM)elw4796 Wrote:  1.11 PPP for Fordham so far, the 308th ranked offense in the country.

At the half: 1.091 PPP for Rice, 1.118 for Fordham.

I’m trying to decide if that’s more statistically significant than it sounds, or less so.

It’s definitely not the same as it sounds though

Unfortunately, not the first time Rice has spit the bit versus Fordham.

Dudes looked out of gas last two days. Even with the 15 extra minutes on Monday, that shouldn’t happen with 10 men getting significant minutes.

I was reminded this week of the trip to Alaska in 2014(?) where we expended 110% game one and went through the motions the next two. Not that we should expect this team to be comparable to that one, but that tourney ended 0-3 with a loss to a D2 squad.

Hopefully the conditioning rounds into form by March, and the next five days off are put to good use.

FTR, Oakland defeated Delaware tonight to win the GCS title, 81-73.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket.../401376734

(11-24-2021 08:34 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Unfortunately, not the first time Rice has spit the bit versus Fordham.

Yes, they were part of the late season disappointment of our strong 92-3 team.

(11-24-2021 07:49 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(11-24-2021 07:30 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  There's no way to sugarcoat this one. Prior to the game, Massey had Fordham at #249.

I’ll sugarcoat it… cause that’s what I do.

249 is Q3.
With the win Fordham ascends 247->223 in KenPom while Rice falls 147->155 (and remains a solid Q2 team).

Still a disappointing loss on a neutral court to a team ranked well below us.

But not the end of the world and not going to ruin our season.

(11-24-2021 05:47 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(11-24-2021 05:36 PM)elw4796 Wrote:  1.11 PPP for Fordham so far, the 308th ranked offense in the country.

At the half: 1.091 PPP for Rice, 1.118 for Fordham.

I’m trying to decide if that’s more statistically significant than it sounds, or less so.

It’s definitely not the same as it sounds though

Thanks for sugarcoating it.

It's pretty easy to realize if Rice did well or not in a football or men's basketball game. Just look at the amounts of posts you see from certain posters. Any game thread with more than 5 posts in it by a poster whose name begins with the initials of a Rice College is a sure loss. Less than 5 posts and it's probably a win.

I won't give up on this team until we see what they can do with a healthy Olivari. Maybe that won't happen, but we can completely change our lineups around if that's the case.

Do we have issues? Yes, absolutely. Right now, we're going to struggle against teams with good big men, and teams that can force turnovers under defensive pressure.

Can they be fixed? Yes, I think they can. And I doubt I would have said that after the UH football game.

Basically, we're Green Light U, but we're running a porsche on regular gas.

And BTW, Carl Pierre had a very nice tournament so that's something to build on. And I bet you he played the most minutes of any Rice player in the 3 games.

We can't beat a Div 1A school who is only 3-3 and Pera is still here?

(11-24-2021 07:49 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(11-24-2021 07:30 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  There's no way to sugarcoat this one. Prior to the game, Massey had Fordham at #249.

I’ll sugarcoat it… cause that’s what I do.

249 is Q3.
With the win Fordham ascends 247->223 in KenPom while Rice falls 147->155 (and remains a solid Q2 team).

Still a disappointing loss on a neutral court to a team ranked well below us.

But not the end of the world and not going to ruin our season.

(11-24-2021 05:47 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  

(11-24-2021 05:36 PM)elw4796 Wrote:  1.11 PPP for Fordham so far, the 308th ranked offense in the country.

At the half: 1.091 PPP for Rice, 1.118 for Fordham.

I’m trying to decide if that’s more statistically significant than it sounds, or less so.

It’s definitely not the same as it sounds though

At least I have a degree from a great university, as opposed to pretending I belong, after attending a glorified community college.

Now, the team should get some momentum with a home heavy schedule, and a relatively easy set of opponents.

(11-24-2021 09:47 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  ...

And BTW, Carl Pierre had a very nice tournament so that's something to build on. And I bet you he played the most minutes of any Rice player in the 3 games.

Correct! Pierre played the most minutes of any Owl in each of the GCS games: 51, 36 (tied with Evee) and 34, respectively, for a total of 121.

Next were Mullins (106), Evee (104), Fiedler (90), Sheffield (70), and Olivari (68).