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HOUSTON – HBU got a career-high 19 points from junior Pedro Castro who narrowly missed out on a double-double but it wasn't enough as the host Rice Owls defeated the Huskies 90-79 on Tuesday afternoon inside Tudor Fieldhouse.
 
Za-Ontay Boothman opened the game with a three from the corner and the two teams went back and forth with the lead early. Rice held a 10-7 lead before back-to-back threes from Hunter Janacek and Brycen Long put HBU up three, 13-10 less than six minutes in. Over the next 10 minutes, the Owls slowly built their lead as high as 11, 35-24, with 4:25 remaining in the half.
 
The Huskies followed with their largest run of the half, scoring the next eight points thanks to a jumper and a three from Pedro Castro and a Myles Pierre triple to make it a 35-32 game with just over three minutes to go. Rice, however, answered with a six-point run to go back up by nine and then took a 43-34 lead into the locker room at the half.
 
HBU was able to get within seven early in the second half but a 17-4 run which included 14 points from Rice's Quincy Olivari pushed the Rice lead 66-46 at the 12:31 mark. The Huskies had an answer to the Owls' run, stringing together 10 points in the span of just over a minute of game time to get it back to 10, 68-58, with 9:17 on the clock. With just under four minutes left, Rice had gone back up by 18 but HBU cut that back down to 11 three times before ultimately falling, 90-79.
 
Castro led the Huskies with a career-high 19 points, connecting on 8-of-16 shooting and pulling down nine rebounds. Darius Lee, in 13 minutes off the bench, tied his career-best with 13 points after shooting 2-of-3 from beyond the arc and 5-of-9 from the floor. A pair of freshmen, Boothman and Long, finished the day with 15 and 7, respectively, with Boothman adding three assists.
 
The Huskies out-shot the Owls, finishing 47 percent (31-of-66) from the floor and 39.3 percent (11-of-28) from three while Rice made 39.5 percent (30-of-76) overall and 35.3 percent (12-of-34) from deep. The Owls also held a 50-34 advantage on the boards and turned 19 offensive rebounds into 28 second chance points. At the foul line, HBU was 6-of-9 while Rice made 18 of its 23 attempts. Olivari led the Owls with a career-high 35 points while Max Fiedler led all players with 16 rebounds.
 
The Huskies head north for their next two games, first making a stop in Denton, Texas to face North Texas on Thursday, Dec. 17, at 7:00 p.m. before continuing on to Norman, Okla. for a date with the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday, Dec. 19.