It will be 12 seed Rice (28-3) vs 5 seed Marquette (26-7). The game will tip off Friday at 1 pm in College Station, and will be televised on ESPN2.

Here's the skinny on Marquette. Yes, they have lost their leading inside scorer and rebounder (Davenport) to injury, but they still have a veteran group of guards who can shoot and score.

They should start this group
5-8 senior Natisha Hiedeman (Big East POY) - 17.8 PPG, 6.1 RPG, about 4.5 APG - shoots a ton of 3's (40 pct mark), and also led them in blocks and steals
senior guard Allazia Blockton - 14.4 PPG - missed a few games to injury but is fine now (had 34 last year in their 2nd round NCAA loss to Louisville)
5-5 senior guard Danielle King - 12.0 PPG
5-9 senior guard Amani Wilborn - 11.7 PPG
and either 5-11 sophomore forward Selena Lott or 6-2 soph. Lauren Van Kleunen - I suspect they'll have to go with the latter to put some height on Mulkey.

Bench should mostly be whichever one doesn't start above, plus 5-6 JR guard Isabelle Spingola (another 3-point threat), and then two other big girls in 6-2 Altia Anderson and 6-4 Amanda Maqueia (neither has played a ton of minutes this year and probably the bulk of their minutes have come in the last few games).

Davenport got hurt in their 2/22 loss to Butler. They also lost to Creighton down the stretch, and in the conference tournament finals to Depaul by 1 point after beating them twice during the regular season. They did play a tough schedule with a very impressive 39-point victory over South Dakota State, and a win over Michigan (another NCAA team). They have close losses at Mississippi State and Miami (FL), and a 24-point loss at home to Notre Dame. That's a strong resume, although I believe the Big East wasn't a great conference this year once you get past the top two teams in Marquette and Depaul.

They won their NCAA 1st round handily last year against Dayton with pretty much this same lineup (plus Davenport), and then lost by 20 or so to Louisville in the 2nd round. In reading a few forum posts on them, they struggle with interior defense (even before Davenport's injury) so obviously Mulkey is a huge factor for Rice's chances. That and we need to play defense for 40 minutes, instead of our first half efforts we saw in the conference tournament. It does help that Mulkey won't have to worry about their inside players shooting 3's (Van Kleunen could do it but she's a 20-pct 3-point shooter), unless they are starting a lineup of 5 guards.

One Marquette writer's take on the matchup:

Quote:Upon doing a google search to find the Rice athletics website, the first link I got was for the WBB roster page, which led me to find that Rice has a 6’9” woman named Nancy Mulkey on the roster. She plays 26 minutes a game and averages 13.7 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 3.9 blocks per game.

Quote:This is the only thing I know about Rice women’s basketball right now, and I am already deathly afraid of them, given Marquette’s problems defending the interior anyway.

While our mis-seeding is a slap in the face, it's worse from the Marquette perspective. They earned a weaker opponent.

Oh well.

Quote:Marquette has gone from a #3 seed and hosting games at the McGuire Center to having to play in Rice’s backyard in the span of five weeks. This stinks.

(03-18-2019 06:53 PM)MOBalum Wrote:  

Quote:Marquette has gone from a #3 seed and hosting games at the McGuire Center to having to play in Rice’s backyard in the span of five weeks. This stinks.

The Aggies will be happy to know College Station is in Rice’s backyard.

Thanks, MOBalum, but your link is broken.

https://www.anonymouseagle.com/2019/3/18...-rice-owls

(03-18-2019 07:16 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 06:53 PM)MOBalum Wrote:  

Quote:Marquette has gone from a #3 seed and hosting games at the McGuire Center to having to play in Rice’s backyard in the span of five weeks. This stinks.

The Aggies will be happy to know College Station is in Rice’s backyard.

Rice will be as well.

Lets be honest. Were all just occupying little fragments of scraps left behind by THE POWERHOUSE.

(03-18-2019 07:16 PM)Tomball Owl Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 06:53 PM)MOBalum Wrote:  

Quote:Marquette has gone from a #3 seed and hosting games at the McGuire Center to having to play in Rice’s backyard in the span of five weeks. This stinks.

The Aggies will be happy to know College Station is in Rice’s backyard.

The point, though, is that Rice fans should outnumber Marquette’s, just as we outnumbered MTSU’s on Saturday.
And probably even more so as Collieville is an order of magnitude closer to Houston than Frisco is.

#TexasIsOurBackyardYall

(03-18-2019 07:25 PM)sts60 Wrote:  Thanks, MOBalum, but your link is broken.

https://www.anonymouseagle.com/2019/3/18...-rice-owls

Really? I just clicked it with success. Using Chrome on an Android phone, if that matters.

Chronicle with a write-up sans Marquette https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/...698281.php

I see from the ESPN App that there are four games being played at 1:00, with all four scheduled to be shown on ESPN2. I assume that means they will just bounce from game-to-game, with the main focus being on the game with most national interest - which if I had to guess, would be K-State vs. Michigan. I was hoping they would just show one of the games on ESPN2, and all the rest would be on ESPN3.

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks to me like we may not get to see much TV coverage of our game, which would really suck. Unfortunately, I'll be in Minnesota this week - otherwise I'd definitely be in College Station.

(03-18-2019 08:34 PM)Minnewaska Owl Wrote:  I see from the ESPN App that there are four games being played at 1:00, with all four scheduled to be shown on ESPN2. I assume that means they will just bounce from game-to-game, with the main focus being on the game with most national interest - which if I had to guess, would be K-State vs. Michigan. I was hoping they would just show one of the games on ESPN2, and all the rest would be on ESPN3.

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks to me like we may not get to see much TV coverage of our game, which would really suck. Unfortunately, I'll be in Minnesota this week - otherwise I'd definitely be in College Station.

I'm seeing on espn.com/watch that they will have it on ESPN3 as well. The national TV coverage will be shoot around style, but specific games are on dedicated online coverage.

(03-18-2019 08:43 PM)franklyconfused Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 08:34 PM)Minnewaska Owl Wrote:  I see from the ESPN App that there are four games being played at 1:00, with all four scheduled to be shown on ESPN2. I assume that means they will just bounce from game-to-game, with the main focus being on the game with most national interest - which if I had to guess, would be K-State vs. Michigan. I was hoping they would just show one of the games on ESPN2, and all the rest would be on ESPN3.

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks to me like we may not get to see much TV coverage of our game, which would really suck. Unfortunately, I'll be in Minnesota this week - otherwise I'd definitely be in College Station.

I'm seeing on espn.com/watch that they will have it on ESPN3 as well. The national TV coverage will be shoot around style, but specific games are on dedicated online coverage.

Fantastic! Thanks for the clarification.

(03-18-2019 08:08 PM)owl95 Wrote:  Chronicle with a write-up sans Marquette https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/...698281.php

Here is the layout for tomorrow’s stories

https://twitter.com/kmacflurry/status/11...61568?s=21

(03-18-2019 06:53 PM)MOBalum Wrote:  One Marquette writer's take on the matchup:

...

Quote:Marquette has gone from a #3 seed and hosting games at the McGuire Center to having to play in Rice’s backyard in the span of five weeks. This stinks.

Yep. The NCAA Committee head (University of Nevada's Ronda Lundin Bennett), said on ESPN's first Selection Show today that Gonzaga and Marquette were judged to be just outside the Top 16 (i.e. being a host).

Quote:Marquette vs. Rice could be fun
One of the more intriguing first round matchups is in the Chicago Region, where No. 5 Marquette will face No. 12 Rice in the first round in College Station, Texas.

This battle will feature the nation’s fourth best offense against the nation’s sixth best defense. Marquette scores 82.9 points per game, but Rice only allows 52.8 points per game.

Marquette was 18th in the latest AP Top 25 Poll, while Rice was voted 21st.

The Owls, who won the CUSA title, are led by Erica Ogwumike, who averages 16.3 points and 10.6 rebounds per game. The Golden Eagles fell in the Big East final to DePaul, but went 26-7 and are led by Natisha Hiedeman’s per-game averages of 17.8 points and 6.1 rebounds.

The winner of Marquette-Rice will face either Texas A&M or Wright State.

5 takeaways from the NCAA women's basketball bracket reveal

I'm about to buy tickets, is there a specific section for Rice fans?

(03-19-2019 08:57 AM)lou Wrote:  I'm about to buy tickets, is there a specific section for Rice fans?

Call Shu or the ticket office. Does Rice get a block of tickets for the NCAAW as they do for baseball post-season games?

Riceowls.com just has a link to A&M's site

(03-18-2019 08:59 PM)Minnewaska Owl Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 08:43 PM)franklyconfused Wrote:  

(03-18-2019 08:34 PM)Minnewaska Owl Wrote:  I see from the ESPN App that there are four games being played at 1:00, with all four scheduled to be shown on ESPN2. I assume that means they will just bounce from game-to-game, with the main focus being on the game with most national interest - which if I had to guess, would be K-State vs. Michigan. I was hoping they would just show one of the games on ESPN2, and all the rest would be on ESPN3.

I hope I'm wrong, but it looks to me like we may not get to see much TV coverage of our game, which would really suck. Unfortunately, I'll be in Minnesota this week - otherwise I'd definitely be in College Station.

I'm seeing on espn.com/watch that they will have it on ESPN3 as well. The national TV coverage will be shoot around style, but specific games are on dedicated online coverage.

Fantastic! Thanks for the clarification.

Awesome.

Unfortunately, ill have to try to watch on Panasonic wifi, which is rather slow. Viasat has been a lot better for streaming.

(03-19-2019 09:06 AM)lou Wrote:  Riceowls.com just has a link to A&M's site

You mean, to our backyard.

(03-19-2019 09:00 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-19-2019 08:57 AM)lou Wrote:  I'm about to buy tickets, is there a specific section for Rice fans?

Call Shu or the ticket office. Does Rice get a block of tickets for the NCAAW as they do for baseball post-season games?

I think I saw that Shu might be working on trying to do a bus/game ticket package.