Men's Basketball: SMS Eliminates Rice from NIT

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Men's Basketball: SMS Eliminates Rice from NIT

3/16/2005

Box Score

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Southwest Missouri State led 40-29 at the half on the strength of 14 offensive rebounds and outscored Rice by 12 in the second-half to win 105-82 and eliminate the Owls from the National Invitation Tournament at the Hammonds Student Center. SMS (19-12) now hosts Davidson in round two on Saturday. Rice ended its season at 19-12.

The Bears scored 17 second-chance points in the first 20 minutes and 29 for the game as they outrebounded Rice 46-38. Twenty of SMS's rebounds came on the offensive half of the court.

The Owls were ahead 15-14 after a made free throw from Michael Harris, when SMS's Deke Thompson drained a long three-pointer with one tick on the shot clock to give SMS the lead for good. That basket ignited the Bears as they went on a 11-3 run to lead 25-18. SMS upped the lead to 38-24 at 2:53 left in the first-half. That is when things went from bad to worse, as Jason McKrieth, while going up for a block, was under-cutted and landed hard on his right-side. Though, he did manage to start the second-half his shooting was affected by the hard fall.

Rice head coach Willis Wilson was asseseed two technical fouls by referee Bryan Kersey at the 19:27 mark in the second-half and was ejected from the contest. Blake Ahearn then hit all four-throws to give the Bears a 44-29 lead.

SMS upped the lead to 22 points (67-45), but Rice battled back to cut it to 14 at 69-55 with 11:26 on the clock but could not get closer.

Rice was led by Harris' 24 points and 10 rebounds for his 22nd double-double of the year. He also became the first player in Rice history to eclipse the 2,000-point plateau. He finished his career with 2,014 points and 1,111 rebounds. His 639 points scored this season is the second-most in a season at Rice. His 363 rebounds this year is a Rice season-record.

Morris Almond tallied 14 points on 4-8 shooting to follow Harris' efforts.

Brock Gillespie scored 10 points and became the 27th Owl and 11th under Wilson to score over 1,000 points. Gillespie concluded his career with 1,007 points. Senior Jason McKrieth did manage to score six points and he finished his career with 1,500 points to rank seventh all-time at Rice.

Tamarr Macklin scored 20 points to lead five SMS players in double-figures.

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