Tonight's game scares me. Rice (2-1) should win at New Orleans (1-2), but this has all the checkmarks of a game that has led to ugly performances in the past.

First off, we're on the road and just don't normally play well in road games (even if Houston is just a teensy bit better than UNO, that is the most recent example). Secondly, UNO has a bit of inside height and is a good rebounding team, which has been another issue leading to losses. But their main scorer (St. Hilaire) is a 6-0 guard and I do think we do a better job of guarding smaller guards than 6-5 or 6-6 shooting guards. They seem to be a decent rebounding team, but not a huge inside scoring team. So far this year in limited results, we do appear to be playing better overall defense (in terms of both 2 point and 3 point FG shooting percentages for our opponents).

And third, even though UNO is 1-2 with a 21-point loss at Ole Miss and a 16 point loss at Northwestern (and an 8-point exhibition loss to Loyola of New Orleans), that's a bit misleading. Ole Miss appears to be solid this year (they almost beat Marquette at home last night), and the Northwestern game was a really competitive effort by UNO as they led or were even with the Wildcats for 32 minutes, before just getting destroyed in the game's final 8 minutes. So they are probably better than their record indicates.

Rice needs a win tonight to keep its goals in place. I don't think the Florida tournament will be a distraction as there aren't any top-25 teams in that field. But playing four games in six days does mean we will need our deep bench, so I do suspect the true freshmen will get to play some. I would imagine Olivari won't play this week?

Hopefully we can put together our first true 40-minute effort of the season. We've had some really good stretches at times, but good basketball 20 minutes and average or even subpar basketball for 20 minutes just won't get it done on the road.

We need Olivari as much for his rebounding as his scoring threat. He's easily our second best rebounder after Fiedler.

Judging off social media-both Rice basketball and Quincy's own-it doesn't appear that he made the trip to New Orleans.

Not sure if the team is going directly to Florida from New Orleans or if they're going back to Houston.

Taurian Houston went with the team to New Orleans, which would lead me to believe that they're going straight to Florida afterwards. He tweeted out this picture of a visitor to Thursday's practice at UNO. I forget who said Pera doesn't have a good rapport with his players (or ex-players in this case), but that's hogwash.

UNO is in a lot of ways just a different version of Southern, albeit a very, very flawed version. Whereas Southern liked to shoot 2s, UNO attacks the basket *a lot*. They're top 20 in the country in % of shots at the rim. And the reason why isn't surprising. Basically nobody on their team apart from St. Hilaire can shoot the ball consistently. He's taken 20 threes and nobody else on the team has attempted more than five (the rest of the team combined is 6/25 from 3). As I said, UNO is incredibly flawed. If you have one guy averaging 20+ a game and nobody else averaging more than 7, you're going to struggle to find consistency. The other reason why they're similar to Southern is they defend the 3PT line well but have struggled defending the paint. Three keys to the game for me:

(1) Can Mullins defend St. Hilaire 1v1? If so, I think we win by 15+
(2) If Mullins struggles, how effectively can Pera adjust to make somebody else beat us?
(3) Can Fiedler and Poteat protect the paint without picking up cheap fouls?

elw - any thoughts on the rest of the CUSA yet? I know you and I differ in that I think UAB is the team to beat (although they can have rough shooting stretches too), and you think La Tech is the team to beat. La Tech already has two back-up interior guys out for the year, and then in their most recent game Isaiah Crawford got hurt (and was on crutches when he came back to the bench). That would be a lot of post guys to replace - I know their best one is Lofton but after that, they're pretty young.

I'm not really sold on anyone after those two. ODU and Marshall are showing they're probably overrated. Charlotte and UNT might be okay, but I don't think either are amazing. Western Kentucky is just tough to gauge because they have so many new faces (some of whom aren't eligible yet I guess?).

With a healthy Olivari, I think we're absolutely in the mix for a top 3 or 4 finish. Although I guess with this year's new tournament format (all 14 teams make the tournament - I think ?? the top seed in each division is the only team that gets a first round bye), it really doesn't help you much unless you win your division.

I'd agree and say UAB is probably the favorite now. They've looked better than La Tech and they'll only get better as their pieces mesh more. Crawford being out for an extended amount of time would hurt La Tech, though Kenny Hunter has actually looked pretty decent in basically all of his minutes. I'm not sold on Charlotte yet. The pieces are there but their underlying defensive numbers have actually been pretty mediocre despite not playing great teams. They've just won because they play slow, force turnovers, don't turn it over, and don't give up OREBs. Can't imagine those are all sustainable against better teams. I think Marshall will be decent come year's end - they just haven't shot it really well. ODU is what ODU usually is - defense will always keep them in games but they won't score enough points against the better defenses in conference. WKU is a bit of a mess, but if Justice can get his feet under him and Harmon actually plays, they should be competitive. McKnight, Hamilton, and Anderson is a darn good trio if they get support. I think UNT is probably better than us right now, just because I can't see us scoring on their defense, but I can't imagine their offense will do much better against other teams in the conference. So I guess at this point, I'm thinking something like: UAB, La Tech, UNT, Marshall, WKU, Rice, Charlotte, UTEP?

The Olivari injury is concerning. I'm going to remain optimistic and predict that he will be close to 100% by the start of conference play. I hate it for the kid -- I was expecting him to truly break out after a solid sophomore campaign. But it is still early...there is a lot of season left...hopefully this is just one of those small, inevitable hiccups that all players go thru. Rather deal with it now than in March. Get well soon Q!

Line is Rice -7 and O/U 150.5.

I think I like Rice and the points and the under in this game.

80-70 Rice gets you a cover and the under.

With a healthy Olivari, I think we're absolutely in the mix for a top 3 or 4 finish

^
emphatic cosign

The effort in the paint is once again not good enough. Multiple UNO offensive rebounds. Not the first time Fiedler hasn't been physical enough this year.

10-8 Rice at the U16. St. Hilaire just 1-3. Mullins has been the primary defender.

16 points allowed in 7 minutes to a bottom 100 offense. Pera's normal defense has awaken. Easy to see which team wants this one more because by my eyes there's only one team actually playing hard.

18-13 UNO at the U12. Offense looks out of sync, defensive effort is the worst it's been all year.

Out rebounded & out shot. Not a good combination. Owls trail 13-18.

Man, Tyson Jackson is demanding the ball when he's posting up both Fiedler and Poteat. That says a lot about the respect that UNO has for our bigs on the defensive end right now.

And neither Poteat or Fiedler has come close to stopping him.

25-24 UNO at the U8. A few too many sloppy turnovers on entry passes and cuts. We just need to be patient on offense. You can see how bad UNO's defensive discipline is - if we minimize the TOs we can score with ease.

The 3-pointers (6-13) are the only thing keeping us in this game.

24-25 UNO despite our 7 turnovers.

Kirkland and Jackson are demanding the ball every time down the floor on Fiedler. And these are both CUSA rejects! It hasn't all been bad defense, but Fiedler is getting bullied right now.

On the flip side, Mullins (and Evee at times) is doing really well against St. Hilaire. He's not getting many good looks.

Rice 38 - 33 at 3:36. We're now 8-15 from deep. 11 assists on our 14 buckets.