Rice Men’s Basketball Features Terrific Young Nucleus of Shooters

Tonight, the UTEP men's basketball team returns home for a big two-game series with Rice. The Owls are currently riding a three-game win streak and they are 8-2 on the season. A big reason for their success has been their guard play. Sophomores Quincy Olivari (18.0 ppg and 4.6 rpg) and Travis Evee (14.7 ppg and 2.8 apg) are averaging 32.7 points per game combined. Junior guard Chris Mullins is third on the team in scoring at 12.1 points per game. All three are dangerous from beyond the three-point arc and the Owls average 31 attempts and 11 made 3s per game.

When Rice is not bombing away, they are one of the best rebounding teams in the league and sophomore forward Max Fiedler leads the way. The 6-10 big man is averaging nearly a double-double for the Owls (10.9 ppg and 9.5 rpg) and 6-9 redshirt sophomore Riley Abercrombie is another dangerous scoring and three-point shooting threat.

Four of the top five scorers on the Rice roster are sophomores. It is an outstanding young nucleus of talent for Scott Pera, who is in his fourth year as head coach. Although he has just a 43-62 career record at Rice, Pera has all the right pieces in place to be near the top of Conference USA for the next three seasons.

Here are a pair of highlight videos of their wins against UTSA last weekend to begin C-USA play.