Rice University
10-21
Marshall
15-17
Rice Holds Off Marshall, 60-59, In First Round
3/11/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
March 11, 2009
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. -Rice junior guard Lawrence Ghoram scored a season high 18 points and Rice held off a late, Marshall rally to post a 60-59 victory during the first round of the Conference USA Championship Wednesday.
With the win, Rice improved to 10-21 on the year and advances to the tournament's quarterfinals. The Owls will face No. 2 seed Tulsa (22-9) Thursday at 12 noon in the FedEx Forum. The game will be broadcast locally in Houston on ESPN 97.5 The Ticket.
Thursday's game will mark the second meeting between Rice and Tulsa in less than a week. The Golden Hurricane came back from a one-point halftime deficit, scoring the second-period's first eight points en route to a 60-50 win over the Owls in Tudor Fieldhouse last Saturday.
No. 10 seed Rice's win against No. 7 seed Marshall marked just the 11th time in C-USA Championship history that a team seeded No. 10 or lower won its first-round game. It was the first time since 2006 a double-digit seed won at the conference championship.
Marshall finished its season at 15-17.
The Thundering Herd struggled to shoot the ball, especially from the perimeter. Marshall made just 3-of-24 three-point attempts (12.5 percent).
Last week junior guard Chris Lutz had a pair of key three-pointers, finished with 12 points and dished out a career-high nine assists in a 76-62 home win against Rice. But Lutz was held to 1-for-10 shooting, including a 1-for-9 performance from three-point range and had just one assist in the Herd's loss to the Owls Wednesday at the conference tournament.
"Give Rice credit, they found a way to win the game," said Marshall coach Donnie Jones. "They played very well, but we had opportunities. It is very difficult as a basketball team to have a chance to win games when we shoot 3-24 and it was 2-23 because we made the last one. This was a game that I thought we had some really good looks, but it just didn't go down from the three-point line. That was important with the way that they were defending us."
Rice senior guard Rodney Foster was held scoreless in the first half but defensively held Lutz in check.
"Rodney had Chris (Lutz) most of the game and played the passing lanes," said Rice first-year coach Ben Braun. "Chris is a good basketball player and I thought that was a huge difference in the game.
"And I thought our post guys did a good job defensively. We didn't give Markel (Humphrey) a lot of angles in the post. The first time we played them, he really got good inside angles and really got easy inside scores."
After scoring 20 points against the Owls last week, Humphrey was held to eight points on 4-for-12 shooting Wednesday in Memphis.
With the score tied at 24-24 early in the second period, Rice went on a 14-4 run to break the game open. Later, a three-pointer by Connor Frizzelle gave Rice its biggest lead 43-30 with 9:59 to play.
Rice would have a nine-point lead with a minute and a half to go. But the margin quickly dissipated into a one-possession advantage.
After Marshall's Shaquille Johnson scored on a jumper, Darryl Merthie stole the ball in the backcourt and made a quick layup to cut the lead to 53-48 with 1:10 remaining. After Foster missed the front end of a one-and-one, Johnson drove inside for a layup to make the score 53-50 with 51 seconds to play.
Rice would make seven of its last 10 free throws in final minute of play. With the Owls leading 59-56 with six seconds to play, Frizzelle, the league's leading free throw shooter, missed the first of two shots but nailed the second to make it a two-possession game.
Frizzelle made his first four field goal attempts, including a trio of three-pointers, and finished with 14 points. Foster scored 12 second-half points and had six assists for the game. Aleks Perka was 5-for-8 from the field and finished with 11 points in his second straight start.
Marshall was led by Merthie's 14 points while Johnson scored 13 for the Thundering Herd.
