SMU guard Derek Williams going for a layup Wednesday against Rice at Moody Coliseum. (CASEY LEE/The Daily Campus)

The SMU men’s basketball team is back on track towards achieving a winning record after a 67-57 win over Rice University Wednesday at Moody Coliseum. The win also marks the first time SMU has won five games in league play since joining Conference USA in the 2006-07 season.

“We’re fortunate to win,” said SMU head coach Matt Doherty. “It’s a fine line who wins and who loses and we’re thrilled to come out of here with a win.”

After a pair of losses to conference foes Houston and the University of Texas at El Paso, the win over the Owls put SMU back on the map at 12-13 overall and 5-6 in league play.

It wasn’t easy, but the Mustangs knocked off Rice (8-17, 1-10) for the second time this season. In their first meeting, the Owls reached their season scoring average — the only team to do that against SMU this season.

Tonight, however, Rice became the tenth team in 11 C-USA games that SMU has held below its scoring average.

In a game that almost came down to the wire, the Owls were scoreless for what was almost the final four minutes, until the they hit a final shot with seven seconds left.

The game started with the teams splitting the lead several times before Rice pulled ahead near the 16-minute mark.

They kept the lead through the first ten minutes of the opening half, but Papa Dia finally put the Mustangs back on top with just fewer than nine minutes left.

Dia, with 10 points and seven rebounds, was just three rebounds away from his eighth double-double of the season. Wednesday was the first time SMU had four players score in double figures in conference play this season.

Robert Nyakundi and Mouhammad Faye posted 11 and 15 points, respectively.

“We’re not in a quick fix situation,” Doherty said about the improvements he is seeing among his players. “This program has been under water for a long time and I think people would admit that. I want to build for sustained success and there’s some things still in the infrastructure that need to be fixed.”

SMU held Rice’s two leading scorers, Tamir Jackson and Arsalan Kazemi, to a combined two points in the first half.Jackson finished the night with three points, 8.3 points under his average. Kazemi, a 6-foot-7-inch freshman from Iran, was held to only two points, 9.3 points under his average.

“I didn’t think we were great tonight, but I thought we were good,” Doherty said. “I didn’t think our defense was great but we managed to win.”

The Mustangs turned the final corner with a three-point shot from Williams to put the Mustangs on top 60-55. They did not surrender the lead.Williams, with 20 points on the night, had his 10th game of scoring 20 points or more, making him the 18th Mustang in history to score 800 career points in a two-year span.

“Derek is obviously so important to our team – probably the most valuable player,” Doherty said. “I need him to be energetic. Teams that have that energy are more successful and recently that energy has come from me and I need it to come from our players.”

Despite the win, SMU is still in the lower half of league standings, but they still are ahead of East Carolina, Tulane and Rice.The Mustangs start a two-game road trip, starting with defending conference champion Memphis (19-7, 8-2) on Saturday. SMU will return to Moody Coliseum on Feb. 27 to take on the University of Houston.

“There’s 24 days starting [today] till the end of the conference tournament,” Doherty said. “I think now we put the pedal down.”