Rice Back at Home Wednesday; Play Host to Havard

HOUSTON, TEXAS (December 15, 2008) After an 11-day break to focus on finals, Rice returns to the court Wednesday as the Owls play host to Harvard.

Tip-off is slated for 7 p.m. in Tudor Fieldhouse. The game will be broadcast by ESPN 97.5 The Ticket.

Rice last played on Dec. 6th, defeating Texas State 100-94. The victory marked just the 15th, 100-point game in Rice school history. The win also snapped a three-game Owl losing streak and was the team’s first victory in newly renovated Tudor Fieldhouse.

Harvard has lost three of its last four games to fall to 4-4 on the year. The Crimson’s current two-game losing streak began with a 76-71, double-overtime home court loss to Northeastern last week.

The Crimson began the year by winning three of its first four games. Junior guard Jeremy Lin has started all eight games this season for Harvard and is averaging a team-leading 19.3 points as well as 5.1 rebounds. Additionally, he leads the team with 33 assists and 26 steals.

Freshman forward Keith Wright is the only other Harvard player to be averaging double figure scoring this season. Wright, already a two-time Ivy League Rookie of the Week, is averaging 10.3 points and 6.1 rebounds. Wright missed last Saturday’s game at George Washington due to an illness after starting the first seven games of the year for Harvard.

For Rice, a shooting slump in late November is in the past for junior guard Cory Pflieger who has raised his season scoring average to 13.4 points per game after a couple 20+ scoring nights. Pflieger scored 21 points against UTSA then had a career-high, 28-point game against Texas State in the Owls’ last week of play.

Backcourt mate Rodney Foster also had a 20-point night against Texas State. The senior is averaging 10.1 points per game and leads the team with 4.4 assist average.

Pflieger and Foster helped lead Rice to one of the university’s best three-point shooting performances in program history during the Owls’ game against Texas State. Pflieger was 5-for-10 from three-point range while Foster was 5-for-7. As a team, Rice was 13-of-25 (52 percent) shooting three-pointers. The 13 treys tied for the third-most in school history. During the current home stand Rice is shooting 54 percent (20-of-37) from three-point range.

Rice will look to improve its perimeter defense as the home stand has also seen the Owls’ previous two opponents combine to make 51 percent of their three-point attempts (26-of-51).

Lin is 16-of-32 from behind the arc for Harvard and the Crimson is shooting 35 percent from three-point range.

Both teams have been beat on the boards through the first eight games of their respective seasons. The Owls’ differential however is a mere -0.2 boards per game. Rice has played its last two games without leading rebounder Aleks Perka who suffered a hyper-extended knee prior to the UTSA game. Perka is averaging 6.3 rebounds per game and also contributing 7.8 points an outing.

Harvard has been outrebounded by 2.7 boards per game.

Following Wednesday’s game against Harvard, Rice travels to Pittsburg to take on Duquesne Saturday afternoon and returns home to take on nationally-ranked Oklahoma Dec. 22.