During the six-game losing streaking that proceeded Saturday’s game with New Orleans, the Rice Owls average 53 points a contest.
A Tamir Jackson lay-up with 16:52 left in the second half of Saturday’s gave Rice 53 points. They went on to score 42 more in a 95-71 victory over the Privateers.
It was the Owls first win since defeating Chicago State 63-60 in overtime Dec. 19. Rice is now 4-13. New Orleans, who is playing as an independent this season, fell to 4-12.
The 95 points scored was easily the highest total of the season, eclipsing the 75 Rice tallied against St. Edward’s on Nov. 14.
There were no shortage of offensive highlights:
Tamir Jackson scored 24 points on 11 of 16 shooting. He moved into the top 10 on the school’s all-time points list, passing Robert Johnson.
Seth Gearhart scored matched his career high with 15 points. He only missed two shots in eight attempts.
Max Guercy continued his strong January with a career high six assists and five steals. The freshman from Arleta, Calif. also tailed 18 points.
Julian DeBose scored a career high 20 points on 8 of 11 shooting and led the Owls with eight rebounds.
The Owls shot 61 percent from the field, including 64 percent in the second half. Rice averaged only 38 percent shooting during its first 16 games.
“We shot well, but we also did a good job keeping our intensity from start to finish,” said Rice coach Ben Braun in a post-game news release. “New Orleans shot the ball well so we needed to respond. We wanted to show that we can play our style of basketball all the way through – not just for 36 minutes.”
The Privateers fell to 0-8 on the road and have now lost to Rice in back-to-back seasons. Lovell Cook had 18 to lead the team, New Orleans shot 48 percent for the game, and 55 percent in the second half.
Here's the full box score.
The Owls will now try to notch a Conference USA win. They are 0-3 in conference games thus far. The next chance for a win will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Central Florida.
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