Owls lose to UCF on Senior Day

HOUSTON, TX -- The Rice Owls forced the UCF Knights to commit 22 turnovers thanks to picking up 16 steals; however, the Owls still lost to UCF 66-59 in front of an announced crowd of 1,899 fans gathered inside Tudor Fieldhouse on Senior day.

Rice (8-20 overall, 1-15 in C-USA) shot 11 for 26 from the free throw line. Yes, that's correct. 11 for 26.

"How do I not talk about today's game without looking at the free throw stat," said Ben Braun, Owls head coach. "You know it's unfortunate because if we make our free throws, or convert even half or a little bit more, we have a chance, really a pretty good chance to win this game. It's frustrating because we worked hard to get the line; and, we don't pake UCF (14-16, 6-10) pay. You gotta make teams pay. It's frustrating because I know our guys are good free throw shooters."

The Owls brickfest from the foul line started in the first half with a 6 for 17 performance in the opening 20 minutes. Rice trailed UCF 32-25 at halftime.

Despite allowing UCF to shoot 63.2% (12 for 19) from the field in the first half and the poor foul shooting, the Owls stayed close because they forced the Knights to turn the ball over 15 times.

Connor Frizzelle, sophomore guard, scored 11 points (4 for 9 from the field including 2 for 4 on three-point shots) in the opening half; however, Frizzelle contributed to the woes from the foul line by making just 2 of his 4 attempts.

"Personally, shooting them, you shoot it and I felt good about it and it doesn't go in," Frizzelle said after the game. "You just feel like 'man'; so, everybody on the team is like 'well at least hit one of them'. When you're not shooting them and you see it, you're like 'man'. It's just a missed opportunity."

Trailing 38-30 early in the second half, Owls senior forward Cliff Ghoram scored four straight points to kick start a 12 to 3 run to give Rice its first lead of the ball game at 42-41 with 11:32 remaining in the ball game.

UCF's Marcus Jordan quickly drained a three-point bucket to put the Knights in front once again. The Knights stretched the lead to six points (50-44) before Frizzelle converted a three-point play to cut the Owls' deficit in half.

Three minutes later, Ghoram drained a jump shot to tie the game at 52 with 6:51 remaining.

The Owls went ahead (57-55) on a steal and fast-break dunk by freshman forward Arsalan Kazemi at the 4:04 mark; however, a missed assignment left UCF's Taylor Young wide open and Young drained a three-point bucket for a one point UCF lead (58-57).

"I'll take blame for the breakdown," said Ghoram. "I was supposed to trap. Help trap up top. That was the assignment. I had a breakdown where I went under the screen; and, they rotated and knocked down the open shot. We had a couple missed assignments. Little things we could have done better. If we would have shot our free throws better, we could have made the game easier for us."

Frizzelle added, "Everybody has missed assignments. I did. I think that's just the game of basketball. Everybody messes up. It's just how you react. It just so happened that ours happened at the end of the game; but, I think, overall, our defensive intensity and the way we played was aggressive. We were actually in to the game. We were trying to 'd' up. I felt like everybody was trying to play as hard as they could."

Frizzelle scored a layup after picking off a bad pass and tied the game at 62; but, once again, the Knights answered.

UCF's sophomore guard A.J. Rompza splashed a three-point bucket with 1:09 on the clock to give the Knights the lead for good.

Frizzelle scored a game-high 19 points for the Owls and Ghoram added 13 points in his final Rice Owls' home game.

"It was a proud feeling to have my parents here (today)," Ghoram concluded.