Rice University
-88, 21, CUSA
UAB
-133, 30 CUSA
UAB Holds Off Rice to Win 75-68
1/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Jan. 18, 2006
Houston -- UAB let a 21-point second-half lead dwindle to six with 2 minutes to play but held on for a 75-68 Conference USA road victory over the Rice Owls (8-8, 2-1 C-USA) in front of 1,647 fans at Autry Court. Marvett McDonald led UAB (13-3, 3-0 C-USA) with 22 points including 6-12 from three-point range. Five of McDonald's long-range bombs were in the first-half. Rice's Morris Almond led all scorers with 29 points on 10-18 shooting and 4-6 beyond the arc.
The Owls were up 11-7 when McDonald, on three consecutive possessions, hit from way downtown to put the Blazers ahead 16-11 and a lead which they would not relinquish. The lead eventually was 14 (28-14) when the Owls rallied and cut it to four with 5:46 left in the half, but UAB scored the next l1 points before Almond's trey closed out the first stanza. UAB shot 56 percent (14-25) to Rice's 38 percent (9-24) in the first-half.
UAB opened the second-half with a 15-6 run to give it its largest lead at 54-33 with 14 minutes to play. The lead was 16 (56-40) when Morris Almond got hot and scored Rice's next 10 points to UAB's five and was able to cut the lead to 11 (61-50). Rodney Foster hit a trey from the corner after an offensive rebound to bring Rice within 6 at 67-61 with 2 minutes remaining, but UAB's Carldell Johnson sank a 12-footer on the next trip down the court. Almond then answered with another three-pointer and Rice was again down 6 (69-63), but McDonald hit two free throws and Paul Delaney converted two free throws to put UAB up 10 with 33 seconds left.
Each team remarkably finished the game by making 24 of 52 shots for 46.2 percent. UAB went 8-23 beyond the arc to Rice's 7-13. The Blazers also made 19-32 free throws compared 13-16 for Rice which was forced to foul near the end.
J.R. Harrison was the only other Owl in double-digits with 14 points and 6 rebounds and Patrick Britton had a game-high 8 rebounds to pare with his 7 points.
Frank Holmes (13), Wen Mukubu (10), Paul Delaney (10) joined McDonald in double-digit scoring.
Rice now travels to Dallas for a 7:05 pm Saturday tip-off at SMU.
