With just seven scholarship players available head coach Matt Doherty and the Mustangs did all they could Saturday night against the Rice Owls. SMU came up short in a 75-66 loss when the Mustangs’ only lead came early, 3-2.
With three players playing a full 40 minutes (Ike Ofoegbu, Jon Killen and Derrick Roberts), Donatas Rackauskas playing 36 minutes and Dez Willingham playing 35 minutes, the Mustangs didn’t have the depth to compete with a Rice team that got 10 different players into the game.
Devon Pearson missed his third straight game with an injury he suffered in the Feb. 14 game against Marshall. Bamba Fall missed his fourth straight game with a broken bone in his left ring finger, and is expected to miss the final two games of the regular season.
Cameron Spencer and Paulius Ritter saw significantly less playing time than they saw against UTEP last Wednesday night.
Spencer, who scored four points in 21 minutes against the Miners, played just four minutes against Rice. Similarly, Ritter, who saw 11 minutes of action against UTEP, scored two points in only five minutes on Saturday.
Doherty rode his starting five for the entirety of the second half, and for most of the first half.
SMU fought off an early 11-0 run by UTEP to start off the game as the Mustangs were down 13-3 early. With the help of Ofoegbu and a late 7-0 run, SMU climbed back to just a six-point halftime deficit.
Ofoegbu scored 16 of the Mustangs’ 28 first-half points.
Continuing his scoring display, Ofoegbu kept piling on the points in the second half.
Out of the first seven made baskets for SMU, all but one was a three-point make, with three from Killen, two from Ofoegbu and one from Willingham.
Roberts’ only two points of the game came with 10:15 left in the second half to tie the game at 52.
From there, the Rice offense took over, and the Mustangs’ offense began to struggle. The Owls would finish the game on a 23-14 run.
Once again Morris Almond came through in the clutch after the SMU defense held him quiet through most of the game.
Almond, who averages 26.4 points a game, was held to just 10 points with six minutes left in the game. That is when he found his stroke, scoring nine points in the final six minutes of the game.
Ofoegbu led all scorers with a career-high 30 points. With 10 rebounds, he gained his fifth straight double-double and his 10th overall on the season. Joining Ofoegbu was Rackauskas, who notched his first career double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Willingham and Killen joined them in double digits with 10 and 12 points, respectively.
The Mustangs (14-13, 3-11) will play their final two games of the season at home. The first will be against Tulsa Wednesday at 7 p.m. and will be aired on CSTV.
