Need to throttle this team.

Just bad basketball and not close to good enough. 8 turnovers are way too many. 3-10 on FTs is unacceptable. Shot 58% from the field against one of the worst teams in CBB and are only up 10. We'll get smacked by Houston on Wednesday if this is how we play.

36 - 26 Rice at half, but we allowed A&M to close the gap in the final two minutes of the half. Shooting 58% from the floor, but a woeful 3-10 from the FT line. Parrish (0-2, after going 0-3 on Saturday), Mullins (0-2) and Martin (3-6). MUST improve.

Just saw the GIF of the dunk. Nice looking but there might be 40 people in the stands?

Does our marketing department just collect a paycheck? I mean we’re a bad team, they’re a really bad team, etc, but *** ****.

(11-12-2018 08:55 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Just saw the GIF of the dunk. Nice looking but there might be 40 people in the stands?

Does our marketing department just collect a paycheck? I mean we’re a bad team, they’re a really bad team, etc, but *** ****.

Trying to draw people on a Monday night against Alabama A&M is probably difficult. I harp on them a lot for our Saturday crowds, but they probably should get a pass on this one.

Embarrassing through and through. Shooting 63% and we're up 6 against this team.

If this is what preparation looks like, this staff shouldn't be around for long.

Now up four at the under-8 mark.

Yikes. This is like the Prairie View equivalent for basketball, maybe even worse.

73-59 final.

Color me unconvinced by this team.

73-59 final. Double-digit win. I'll take it.

Sounds like they played down to the competition

Positives:
- At least the team didn't fold down the stretch. Would've been pretty easy to do so
- We actually shot the ball pretty well
- Ako found his stroke which we will definitely need

Negatives:
- Houston beat this team by 47 in a glorified shoot around for them. We'll get blown out on Wednesday if we play this way
- 18 turnovers, 59% from the line. No commentary needed
- There was a stretch in the second half where AAMU was getting everything they wanted. We stemmed the tide a bit towards the end, though

Where have you people been for the last two years? If you were expecting Rice to make the Final Four this year, get used to disappointment.

We didn't play well at all. Let's get that straight.

But we're not capable of blowing anyone out at this juncture is my guess. And A&M lost by 15 at South Florida to begin the season so that puts us about their level.

I'm sorry but Rob Martin needs to be starting for Tim Harrison. Bring Harrison off the bench. And I think we need to go smaller at times. I liked the line-up at the end of Adams, Mullins, Parrish, Martin and Williams. That's definitely our best defensive team against smaller squads. Parrish is a work in progress, but he's probably the best defensive guard we've had in years.

We will probably get blown out vs. UH. But I think we can play a lot better than we did tonight.

(11-12-2018 10:30 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  We didn't play well at all. Let's get that straight.

But we're not capable of blowing anyone out at this juncture is my guess. And A&M lost by 15 at South Florida to begin the season so that puts us about their level.

I'm sorry but Rob Martin needs to be starting for Tim Harrison. Bring Harrison off the bench. And I think we need to go smaller at times. I liked the line-up at the end of Adams, Mullins, Parrish, Martin and Williams. That's definitely our best defensive team against smaller squads. Parrish is a work in progress, but he's probably the best defensive guard we've had in years.

We will probably get blown out vs. UH. But I think we can play a lot better than we did tonight.

Agree that Martin should be starting. He and Ako played well. Parrish and Williams had moments. Everyone else...meh. This team is such an improvement over last year. I’m surprised by the severity of some of the criticism.

I just got back from the game and I have a whole lot to say in reply to this thread.

Regarding the attendance:
1) The weather seriously sucked, both on my way walking in and walking back to my car, I questioned my own sanity for coming in for the game. So I would cut the attendance some slack.
2) There were almost NO Alabama A&M fans in attendance that I could see so what was at the arena was all Rice
3) One student section was about 80% filled and the other section had a couple rows of athletes, I'd say that was ok given the weather. I've certainly seen it much worse than that.

As for the team, as I told Tiki at the game, our defense was 8 pts worse than UH and our offense was about 25 pts worse than UH. To me that looks like maybe a 10-15 pt loss to UH. I hope we are more competitive than that, but UH is still a bubble tournament team and we are not. We are probably lucky if we end up with an RPI around 200.

The thing that I have noticed is that our freshmen are more ready to play than any group of freshmen I have seen in recent years at Rice. Certainly more than last year and even more so than Evans' freshman year. To close out the half, we had 4 freshmen and Parrish out there and Alabama A&M was not really able to close the gap on them. Nobody looked like a deer in the headlights. I remember the first time they had Najja Hunter and Malik Osborne check in last year and they looked out of control. These freshmen do not.

We are shooting better from the outside and we had stretches of really good defense. We lost a game just like this last year to EKU. That was a bitter pill for me to swallow. I think this team has alot more poise and faith in themselves despite being so young. I am a lot more optimistic watching this team than I did watching last year's team, and even despite Hunter and Osborne's development halfway through the season, they never looked like a team that could close out the close games. This team looks like it can. After what I have seen so far, I am willing to say that we will win more games than last year and I can't wait to see how these freshmen develop through the season. Also, Josh Parrish had 5 blocks! That guy's athleticism is through the roof.

(11-12-2018 08:55 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Just saw the GIF of the dunk. Nice looking but there might be 40 people in the stands?

Does our marketing department just collect a paycheck? I mean we’re a bad team, they’re a really bad team, etc, but *** ****.

How many that post here are close enough to go the games?

(11-12-2018 11:17 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  

(11-12-2018 08:55 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Just saw the GIF of the dunk. Nice looking but there might be 40 people in the stands?

Does our marketing department just collect a paycheck? I mean we’re a bad team, they’re a really bad team, etc, but *** ****.

How many that post here are close enough to go the games?

Admittedly, not me.

That said, I did go to the USM-SMU basketball game yesterday afternoon because I had nothing better to do and I saw a billboard on the Dallas North Tollway advertising the game. This type of basic marketing stuff is not difficult to do, yields results, and has been done before by us.

(11-12-2018 08:55 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  Just saw the GIF of the dunk. Nice looking but there might be 40 people in the stands?

Does our marketing department just collect a paycheck? I mean we’re a bad team, they’re a really bad team, etc, but *** ****.

it's a Monday and the weather is miserable for most of Houston. Not sure how we can expect the marketing team to convince people to show up en masse with the above conditions to watch a team that was generally terrible last year.

Unfortunately, I had a call that ran 2 hours long and missed the game. But broader point, this is a near impossible product to market until the product turns into something semi-desirable.

Highlight plays from this evening.

https://twitter.com/ricebasketball/statu...10304?s=21

(11-12-2018 11:45 PM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  Highlight plays from this evening.

https://twitter.com/ricebasketball/statu...10304?s=21

Excellent highlight reel! Thanks for posting the link, Tiki!