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2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
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elw4796 Offline
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Post: #1
2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
Pera announced that Riley Abercrombie is eligible for the upcoming season. He looks like a really good fit in the system. 6-9 perimeter shooter. I haven't seen anything that would make it likely that Evee can play right away. Having him available at the point would be a game changer, but I don't see how he'd be able to get a waiver.

Apart from that, the team is kind of patchwork. In all honesty, the entire season might depend on our three true freshmen: Poteat, Hutchins, and Sheffield.

Apart from Poteat, we only have two true bigs on the roster. I think Ondigo should thrive at this level, and Fiedler looked reliable last year, but two paint bigs isn't sustainable. That means Poteat is going to have to play biggish minutes this year, and they can't be bad minutes because we've seen too many times these last few years what a weak interior defense does.

As to Hutchins, him becoming a dependent ball handler takes the pressure off of Moore and Mullins, who have both showed flashes but I'm not sure are true 1s. Like with the point above, we've seen what can go wrong without a true lead guard.

And for Sheffield, we're going to need his shooting. With Peterson and Murphy gone, the only established shooters we have on the roster are Olivari and Lieppert (and maybe Abercrombie). That just won't work in Pera's offense which is designed to get shots in high volumes.

The biggest question marks are Clark and Havsa. Havsa hasn't proven that he can shoot the ball consistently, and Clark is an odd fit in that he's 10-55 from 3 in his career. The hope is that both are really good defenders and effective attacking the basket. Both have good size (6-5), so we can sacrifice some offense from both of them if they make our defense better.

My conclusion is that we're going to need a lot to go right, and basically the entire team is going to need to step up. Like I feel like I've said every year for the past 3-5 years, there are pieces there. But they're going to have to come together in a way that we haven't seen yet under Pera.
10-23-2020 05:15 PM
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Fort Bend Owl Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
I don't understand why the NCAA wouldn't just make every transfer eligible at this point in basketball. If basketball follows the same path as football, there are going to be so many mini outbreaks of covid that many games will be at risk of being cancelled and it would help out teams to have as large of a roster as possible (so Rice's 15-man roster in men's basketball is a plus -- the 12-woman roster in women's basketball is problematic).

But if Evee isn't eligible (which as you say is likely), then the Owls can make do with the 14 eligible players. I think Olivari (35 3-pointers last year) and Lieppert (125 3-pointers in JUCO) can replace Murphy and Peterson (roughly 120 3-pointers between them). But they can't replace 4 guys as we also lost Ako Adams and Robert Martin to graduation. We really need Mullins to revert to his freshman performance level and not see a repeat of his sophomore campaign.

Havsa might be given a chance at point guard. He's got that background. I don't think the lack of bigs is that 'big' of a deal as we ended up going small for much of last year. Ondigo and Poteet alone will make us a much bigger team this year, and should help our rebounding quite a bit.
10-24-2020 09:30 AM
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ExcitedOwl18 Offline
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Post: #3
RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
Evee should use the recent exposé about racism at VMI to pull a Justin Fields. Of course, I don’t think he’ll get the same treatment because the NCAA sucks but worth a try.
(This post was last modified: 10-24-2020 09:44 AM by ExcitedOwl18.)
10-24-2020 09:44 AM
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Texasowl Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
I still think Rice is wasting money having MBB. The transfer rule by the NCAA destroyed MBB unless you are a P5 school. Nobody goes to the game anyway. Drop MBB or at least suspend it for a couple of years and try a different sport.
10-25-2020 08:21 AM
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Owl 69/70/75 Offline
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Post: #5
RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
(10-25-2020 08:21 AM)Texasowl Wrote:  I still think Rice is wasting money having MBB. The transfer rule by the NCAA destroyed MBB unless you are a P5 school. Nobody goes to the game anyway. Drop MBB or at least suspend it for a couple of years and try a different sport.

Rice basketball has always been a waste of money because Rice has never made the effort to do it right. Just like football.
10-25-2020 08:28 AM
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texowl2 Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
(10-25-2020 08:28 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  
(10-25-2020 08:21 AM)Texasowl Wrote:  I still think Rice is wasting money having MBB. The transfer rule by the NCAA destroyed MBB unless you are a P5 school. Nobody goes to the game anyway. Drop MBB or at least suspend it for a couple of years and try a different sport.

Rice basketball has always been a waste of money because Rice has never made the effort to do it right. Just like football.

sadly true.
10-25-2020 12:29 PM
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dragon2owl Offline
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Post: #7
RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
Looks like conference schedules are out. Haven't found a full Rice one and too tired to put one together from other schedules.
10-26-2020 09:31 PM
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Fort Bend Owl Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
Looks like from folks' posts on the conference board that the Rice men will for sure play UNT (home and home Jan. 28/30, so that would be our local travel opponent), at UAB for 2 games (Jan. 21/23), at WKU for 2 games (Feb. 11/13), and host ODU for 2 games (Jan. 14/16). That leaves 5 opponents TBA (3 at home, 2 on the road) and 10 more conference games total. But 8 of the 18 are against four of the top teams in conference, so it appears to be a pretty hard schedule.

From what we heard this weekend, it sounds like men's and women's basketball might have about 6 additional NC games besides the conference games - some at home and some on the road (or a neutral site). And things should be announced shortly.
10-27-2020 05:17 PM
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WRCisforgotten79 Offline
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Post: #9
RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
(10-27-2020 05:17 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Looks like from folks' posts on the conference board that the Rice men will for sure play UNT (home and home Jan. 28/30, so that would be our local travel opponent), at UAB for 2 games (Jan. 21/23), at WKU for 2 games (Feb. 11/13), and host ODU for 2 games (Jan. 14/16). That leaves 5 opponents TBA (3 at home, 2 on the road) and 10 more conference games total. But 8 of the 18 are against four of the top teams in conference, so it appears to be a pretty hard schedule.

From what we heard this weekend, it sounds like men's and women's basketball might have about 6 additional NC games besides the conference games - some at home and some on the road (or a neutral site). And things should be announced shortly.

Rice hosts Marshall on February 18 and 20.
10-27-2020 11:28 PM
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dragon2owl Offline
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Post: #10
RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
Host UTSA Dec. 31 and Jan 2.
10-28-2020 08:48 AM
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Almadenmike Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
This CUSA preview was posted on the Conference BB: https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/conf...21-preview

We're tabbed to lead the conference's "Tier 5".

(OK, we're the only resident of the Tier-5 basement.)
11-03-2020 12:01 PM
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Tomball Owl Offline
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Post: #12
RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
(11-03-2020 12:01 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  This CUSA preview was posted on the Conference BB: https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/conf...21-preview

We're tabbed to lead the conference's "Tier 5".

(OK, we're the only resident of the Tier-5 basement.)

Ouch!

I guess it's time to start cancelling, I mean "postponing", basketball games as well.
11-03-2020 12:22 PM
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OptimisticOwl Offline
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Post: #13
RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
(11-03-2020 12:01 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  This CUSA preview was posted on the Conference BB: https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/conf...21-preview

We're tabbed to lead the conference's "Tier 5".

(OK, we're the only resident of the Tier-5 basement.)

So, to exceed expectations, all we have to do is not finish dead last?
11-03-2020 03:13 PM
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Fort Bend Owl Offline
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Post: #14
RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
(11-03-2020 12:01 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  This CUSA preview was posted on the Conference BB: https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/conf...21-preview

We're tabbed to lead the conference's "Tier 5".

(OK, we're the only resident of the Tier-5 basement.)

I'm not sure how much stock I'd place in that preview. If they're both healthy, I'm pretty sure Ondigo is going to start over Fiedler for example.

There's no question that most of the teams in CUSA return a decent amount of firepower. And that on paper, we deserve to be picked near the bottom of the league.

But I'm not sure how any predictions can be taken too seriously with the threat of Covid looming over every team. A football team can overcome 1 or 2 guys being out in quarantine. It won't be as easy for a basketball team to do so.
11-03-2020 03:53 PM
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elw4796 Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
I simultaneously wouldn't take stock of any preview (nobody knows how the team is going to mesh), but also think that a bottom four finish is more likely than anything right now. This will roughly be Pera's third blank slate: we won 4 conference games in 17-18 and 8 conference games in 18-19. I think you can safely say that, on paper, this group probably splits the middle between the Hunter-Osborne class and the Murphy-Peterson-QMB-Mullins-Moore class. So if I'm an expert, I'm guessing between 4-6 conference wins.
11-03-2020 05:49 PM
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Fort Bend Owl Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
The Denton paper says the conference has approved Friday/Saturday schedules (they were talking about Thursday/Saturday). But since the conference requires basically 24 hours between games, it's more likely to be Friday night and Saturday night games?

I had heard originally Thursday night and Saturday afternoon games (so teams could leave town Saturday after the 2nd game). I suppose they still may have Saturday afternoon games (and just ignore that rule?) but perhaps they are leaning towards Friday/Saturday night now instead? It might be hard to get from say Houston to Denton on a Friday night/Saturday afternoon set-up. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Either way, it appears that the men and women's schedules will be the same - but just flip-flopped. So if the Rice men are at UAB for 2 games, the women will be hosting UAB those same 2 days.
11-03-2020 06:29 PM
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waltgreenberg Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
(11-03-2020 06:29 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  The Denton paper says the conference has approved Friday/Saturday schedules (they were talking about Thursday/Saturday). But since the conference requires basically 24 hours between games, it's more likely to be Friday night and Saturday night games?

I had heard originally Thursday night and Saturday afternoon games (so teams could leave town Saturday after the 2nd game). I suppose they still may have Saturday afternoon games (and just ignore that rule?) but perhaps they are leaning towards Friday/Saturday night now instead? It might be hard to get from say Houston to Denton on a Friday night/Saturday afternoon set-up. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Either way, it appears that the men and women's schedules will be the same - but just flip-flopped. So if the Rice men are at UAB for 2 games, the women will be hosting UAB those same 2 days.

Volleyball will be following the same back-to-back games, same teams format, but on Sundays and Mondays.
11-03-2020 06:35 PM
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Fort Bend Owl Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
Basketball schedules are complete (well the women are still trying to get in more games but the men are at a 27-game regular season right now). It's not the most attractive NC schedule ever, but the men do now have 9 non-conference games between Nov. 27th (starting with a 3-game tournament out in San Antonio) and Dec. 21st.

Conference games are Friday and Saturdays, but I don't know if they know the times yet. The conference requires 21 hours between games so you can't play Friday evening/Saturday day games. I would imagine it will be night games but I suppose a few could be day games (like UTSA which should now be Dec. 31st and Jan. 1st).

We also play probably the toughest conference schedule in the league with pairs of games against the top 5 teams in the preseason poll (also 7-9 and 13).
11-05-2020 10:17 PM
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dragon2owl Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
Nov 27 @ Incarnate Word
Nov 28 vs Our Lady of the Lake (in San Antonio)
Dec 3 vs LeTourneau
Dec 5 @ Houston Baptist
Dec 12 @ Houston
Dec 15 vs Houston Baptist
Dec 19 @ Sam Houston
Dec 21 vs Incarnate Word
(This post was last modified: 11-14-2020 07:21 PM by dragon2owl.)
11-14-2020 12:11 PM
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Fort Bend Owl Offline
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RE: 2020-2021 MBB Preseason Thread
The schedule is still being fiddled with, but the first one I saw a few weeks ago also had Rice hosting LeTourneau and Incarnate Word (Dec. 21st for the latter game - that's on their schedule too). And then we play a home and home series with Houston Baptist.
11-14-2020 05:53 PM
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