Rice University
Cal State Northridge
Women's Hoops Tudor Terrific in Opener
11/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Nov. 14, 2008
HOUSTON - The Rice women's basketball team christened Tudor Fieldhouse with an impressive 76-55 victory over Cal State Northridge Friday evening in front of 1,217 fans as basketball returned to the Rice campus for the first time in 20 months.
Morgan Mayse led a balanced attack with 16 points and five rebounds as 11 of 12 Owls scored a point. Maudess Fulton and Tara Watts chipped in 14 and 13 points, respectively.
Emery Carter hauled down a game-high nine rebounds to go along with six points, while Memri Carmon added a career-best eight points off the bench. D'Frantz Smart tacked on six points and four assists.
The Owls started slow as CSUN's Tonicia Tademy scored six quick points to give the Matadors a 13-12 edge at the 13:02 mark of the opening half. Tademy finished with 15 points on 7-of-13 shooting, grabbed eight rebounds and distributed four assists.
"It was the first game and we're still a young team, so it was a lot of girls' first time playing a Div-I [Division I] game that counts on our record," Watts said. "There were probably butterflies and nervousness."
Rice responded by reeling off a 24-8 run to close the half. Watts, Fulton and Mayse took over the game in succession for the Owls.
Watts sparked the run with back-to-back three-pointers, while Fulton strung together five quick points as the duo combined for 23 of their 27 points in the first half. Mayse fired in seven straight points of her own as the Owls took a 36-21 advantage into the locker room.
"We did start out a little shaky," head coach Greg Williams said. "But once we settled down I thought our defense was pretty solid for the most part. I liked our intensity, and I liked the fact that Tara [Watts] and Maudess [Fulton] - our two leading returning scorers - along with Morgan [Mayse] stepped up and helped us get points on the board."
Rice carried its momentum out of the locker room and scored 20 of the first 26 points of the second half to balloon the lead out to 56-29 on a Carmon jumper with 12:55 to go.
Megan Elliott, Brianna Hypolite, Amenemope McKinney and Candace Ashford each knocked down their first collegiate points in the second half as the Owls cruised to the final margin of 77-56.
The Owls open the season with six of its seven at Tudor Fieldhouse and square off against Prairie View A&M at 7pm on Wednesday. KTRU 91.7 FM and RiceOwls.com will have all of the action live with the pregame show beginning at 6:45pm. RiceOwls.com also will provide live stats for free via GameTracker.
