Rice University
2-4
Utah
1-3
Early Owl Lead Not Enough At Utah
11/25/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 25, 2006
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Johnnie Bryant tied his career-high of 28 points as Utah defeated Rice 80-64 on Saturday night. Rice's Morris Almond put forth a superb effort by scoring a career-high 42 points. Almond, who entered the game with a 26.8 points per game scoring average, made his first eight field-goal attempts and first seven foul shots. For the game he shot 13-16 from the field (81 percent) and 12-14 from the free throw line, in addition to making 4 of 6 three-point bombs.
Almond is now averaging 29.3 points a game this season.
The 42 points scored by Almond ties him with Tom Robitaille for fourth on the single-game scoring chart at Rice. Almond's previous career-high was 40 set last year in game two vs. SMU. He has now scored over 30 points three times this season and 10 times in his career.
Early on, it looked as if the Utes were on their way to the historically bad start. Utah shot 40 percent in the first half and trailed by nine points at halftime. In the first half, Rice shot 54 percent.
But Bryant and Shaun Green were hot in the second half and the Utes made a bigger commitment to playing defense. Bryant scored 17 points and Green had 12 points and two 3-pointers in the second half.
Utah also held Rice (2-4) to 25 points and 35 percent shooting from the field in the second half.
Utah took the game's momentum early in the second half after Rice's Paulius Packevicius picked up a technical foul for shoving Green. At the time, the Utes were closing the gap on Rice's big halftime lead, and only trailed by three points.
After Packevicius' shove, Utah closed out a 15-0 run to take a 55-46 lead with less than 10 minutes remaining.
Green finished with a career-high 17 points and nine rebounds.
