Three Games, Three Days
11/19/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 19, 2008
Rice Notes l Cal Poly Notes l Conference USA Notes
Listen l l
PROVO, Utah - With just one game in the ledger, Rice will continue to get an early measure of where the program is this week as the Owls take part in the Basketball Travelers Invitational hosted by Brigham Young University.
Rice opens the Multi-Team Event Thursday when the Owls take on Big West Conference member Cal Poly. Tip-off is slated for 6:00 p.m. Central Standard Time. Rice will play BYU on Friday and North Florida on Saturday at the tournament. All three games will be broadcast by ESPN 97.5 The Ticket and by linking at riceowls.com. Additionally, Friday's game against BYU will be televised and available on selected cable systems, both Dish Network and Direct TV as well as streamed at byu.tv.
Cal Poly is coming off a 67-40 home-court loss to Arkansas-Little Rock last week. UALR shot 53 percent from the field en route to the win.
Cal Poly senior post player Titus Shelton led the Mustangs with 15 points, going 5-for-11 from the field. The rest of the Cal Poly team combined for just nine field goals against the defense-minded Trojans. Cal Poly shot just 25.9 percent from the field for the game and was outrebounded 43-29.
The Mustangs were 12-18 last year. Returning starting guards Trae Clark and Lorenzo Keeler both averaged better than 10 points per game. Shelton was the 2007 Big West Conference Defensive Player of the Year after averaging 1.48 blocks per game as a sophomore. He has 84 for his career.
Rice opened its season last week with a 78-74 loss to defending Big Sky Conference champion Portland State.
Like Cal Poly, Rice was outrebounded by double figures in its season opener (38-27). But the Owls had plenty of positives to build on including a 52-percent shooting night. The team also limited turnovers in the game to just six.
Rice junior guard Cory Pflieger, who missed all but five games with an ankle injury, returned to match a career high with 17 points against Portland State. Aleks Perka also had a career game, scoring 15 points and pulling down nine rebounds, both new standards for the senior forward. Senior guard Rodney Foster scored eight points and set a new career standard with nine assists in the opener.
This week's tournament will mark the first time since the 2003-04 BP Top of the World Classic that the Owls have played in an event in which three games were played in as many days. Rice won the tournament, defeating Washington State 64-49 in the championship game. Rice also played three games in the 2007 Conference USA Tournament, losing in the post-season championship's semifinal round.
