Longhorns Sir'Jabari Rice Shows Consistency From Downtown In Win Over Colgate
Sir'Jabari Rice can't remember the last time he had a performance like his 23-point performance against Colgate in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
It wasn't during his time at New Mexico State. He never scored more than 29 points, and even then, it came off 17 shots against Utah Valley. It didn't happen throughout the regular season at Texas, either.
Naturally, scoring 23 points is relatively easy for the senior guard since Thursday marked his sixth 20-plus point game, but it's how the buckets were acclimated; the 3's. Rice drained seven triples en route to the Longhorns' 81-61 win over the Raiders.
"I scored 50 in a game in high school once,” Rice told reporters Thursday evening at the Wells Fago Arena. “I may have hit seven or eight threes that game, but you didn’t really keep track of things like that then.”
Rice was the leading man, but the 3-point play was the story for Texas. The Longhorns drained 13 triples to tie the school’s postseason record while punching their ticket to a Round of 32 showdown with 10th-seeded Penn State. Marcus Carr was 66.6 percent from behind the arc (4 of 5,) while Tyrese Hunter nabbed a pair of deep shots in the second half.
Winning with the 3-pointer is one thing. Stopping the 3 is another. Colgate, the three-time defending champion of the Patriot League, entered Thursday as the best shooting team from downtown at 41 percent. Instead, it was the Longhorns looking like the nation's best while crowding shooters each chance it looked like a lane would open.
“Our goal was to keep them to six, and we held them to three,” interim Texas head coach Rodney Terry said postgame. “We wanted to hold them to 65 points and held them to 61. That’s pretty good.”
A clean defense and aggressive shooting inside the paint to accompany consistent deep shots? That's a recipe Texas can win with through Des Moines. It also helps that Carr and Dylan Disu won't have to be the top two scorers throughout the tournament.
You can add Rice to that conversation as well despite being a sixth man. That shouldn't be viewed as an insult, either. Multiple teams at the NBA level rely heavily on their go-to bench player to average more minutes, rebounds and points in clutch performances.
On most teams, Rice would likely be an average No. 5 starter. With the Longhorns, the 6-4 guard is arguably the top sixth man in college hoops.
“He’s a big-time shooter,” Disu said of Rice's outing. “He’s so smooth, he looks like he’s shooting in slow motion.”
The combination of Disu, Carr and Rice could be deadly against the Nittany Lions Saturday afternoon, especially if it comes down to 3-point shooting. Penn State, which entered the tournament ranked sixth in 3-point percentage, drained a season-high 13 triples against Longhorns' in-state rival Texas A&M to send the Aggies back to College Station with an L.
The Longhorns will have to stop the duo of Jalen Pickett and Andrew Funk from finding success from the 3-point line. Pickett, a first-team All-American that averaged 17.9 points during the regular season, is currently shooting 38.5 percent from deep. Funk, who leads the team in 3-point percentage (42.5), hit eight against the Aggies and finished with 27 points.
Of course, Texas could always counteract with Carr and Rice. Carr is currently making 36 percent from downtown, while Rice is close behind at 34.9 percent. Hunter, another wiz when it comes to the deep ball, comes in at third behind Rice at 33.5 percent.
Maybe Carr will be the guy draining shots Saturday afternoon to help Texas punch its ticket to the next round. Perhaps it's Hunter or even Disu. Then again, why bet against Rice?
Players are now just heating up heading into Round 2.
Rice? He's already on fire.
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