Boxscore The new year didn't get off to a good start for the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs Saturday afternoon at Rice.
After going 5-1 in the month of December, Tech couldn't stop a red-hot Rice offense as the Owls downed the Bulldogs 78-57 before a crowd of 1,176 at Autry Court.
The loss snapped a three-game win streak for Tech as the Bulldogs fell to 6-5 overall and 1-1 in the Western Athletic Conference while Rice moved to 7-3 and 2-0.
Rice hit on 58 percent (29-50) of its shots from the floor in the contest while holding the Bulldogs to a 39.6 (21-53) shooting percentage.
Turnovers also proved costly for the 'Dogs as Tech gave the ball up 23 times.
"We fell back to turning the ball over again," Tech coach Keith Richard said. "You can't make 23 turnovers and win. I'm disappointed with the turnovers and the crazy way we played out there."
Louisiana Tech did much of its damage from long range, connecting on a seasoon-high 8-of-19 three pointers. But that still wasn't enough against the Owls, who won the battle on the boards by a 37-23 margin. The Owls scored 12 of their points off of 10 offensive rebounds in the contest.
Sophomore forward
Paul Millsap led Tech with 14 points and eight rebounds after fouling out with 3:32 remaining.
Corey Dean and
Barry Thompson added 11 points each for the Bulldogs while
Wayne Powell chipped in with nine points for Tech.
Senior forward Michael Harris made good on 10-of-13 of his field goal attempts to lead the Owls with 27 points and also topped all rebounders with 14 boards.
"We had trouble guarding Harris when we went in wanting to limit his touches," Richard said. "He made 10-of-13 attempts, so we didn't do a very good job of stopping him."
Brock Gillespie added 12 points for Rice while Patrick Britton chipped in with 10 points for the Owls.
Rice controlled the first half with a .548 shooting percentage (17-31) while holding the Bulldogs to 12-of-32 field goal attempts (.375). The Owls also owned the boards in the opening stanza, outrebounding Tech 24-13 in the first 20 minutes.
The Owls led 40-30 at intermission and the Bulldogs made a move in the first few minutes of the second half, cutting the Rice advantage to 49-46 with 14:23 remaining on a
Barry Thompson 3-pointer.
But Rice raced out to a 14-3 run at that point and never looked back.
"When we get out of kilter on offense, it also effects us defensively," Richard said. "It was just poor execution of our offense after we had made good strides in getting better in that part of our game. Today is an example of how we looke when we're not careful with the ball and don't take good looks."
Millsap and Powell each scored seven points to lead Tech's first-half efforts despite the fact that Millsap spent more time than usual on the bench after picking up a pair of fouls early on in the contest.
The Bulldogs turned the ball over nine times in the first half after turning the ball over only a combined 21 times in Tech's two previous games, both wins for the 'Dogs.
Louisiana Tech returns to action on Thursday when the Bulldogs play host to Nevada in a 6:30 p.m. WAC contest at the Thomas Assembly Center.
