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HOUSTON – HBU out-rebounded Rice by 12 but was unable to overcome the Owls' torrid three-point shooting, falling by a score of 88-73 on Saturday evening in Sharp Gym.
HBU (3-6) got consecutive buckets from
Brycen Long and
Sam Hofman for an early 6-3 lead but the next eight points went to Rice (6-4) for an 11-6 game at the 15:29 mark. The Huskies' deficit remained in single-digits for the next nine minutes with a
Za-Ontay Boothman and-one pulling HBU to within three, 25-22, with 6:28 to go in the half. The Owls then embarked on a 12-0 run to lead by 15 with a little under four to go and led by 19, 51-32, at the half.
In the second half, every time the Huskies would make a push to cut the Rice lead the Owls responded and maintained a double-figure lead the entire second half. HBU out-scored the Owls 41-37 in the second half.
Jade Tse led the Huskies with 14 points, matching his career-high on 4-of-12 shooting while hitting 6-of-8 from the foul line. Hofman finished the night with 12 points and pulled down six rebounds.
Zach Iyeyemi and Boothman both scored 10 points off the bench.
Brycen Long, meanwhile, had nine points, matched his career-best with five assists, pulled down four rebounds and had two blocked shots and two steals.
Darius Lee led all players with 11 rebounds to go along with eight points and four assists.
HBU out-rebounded the Owls, 43-31, and had 18 boards on the offensive end that led to 21 second-chance points. The Huskies shot 40 percent (26-of-65) from the floor while Rice connected at a 50 percent (32-of-64) clip and hit 15-of-31 (48.4 percent) from long range.
Rice's Quincy Olivari led all players with 27 points, shooting 11-of-15 from the floor and 4-of-7 from three. Carl Pierre added 21 for the Owls as the only other player on the team scoring in double-figures.
The Huskies have more than a week off with finals taking place this coming week before they travel to Miami, Fla. for their final game before Christmas, taking on Florida International on Tuesday, Dec. 21, at 6:00 p.m. CT.
