For the first time in 13 years, the Texas Longhorns will face the Rice Owls in a true road game. During that time, the two teams have played a handful of times in Austin and at Houston’s Toyota Center, but have not played on the Rice campus since the final season of the Southwest Conference. This time, the Owls are playing in the sparkling new Tudor Fieldhouse, a 5,208 seat gym that head coach Ben Braun hopes will lure more recruits to the perennially-weak program.

Rice is off to its best start in years, grabbing victories in four of the first five games. While the wins have come against sub-par competition, they are an important part of instilling a new attitude at a program that was winless in Conference USA just two years ago. Braun led the Owls to four conference wins last year, and hopes to build upon that success in the first season with his own recruiting class.

By the numbers

Rice is a very average team statistically so far this year. Despite the fact that they have four wins, the efficiency stats actually show that they give up 0.021 points per possession more than they score. While that number might seem small, posting a negative differential of any size is incredibly troubling for a team that has four wins, and even more so when those wins have come against teams such as Sacramento State and Houston Baptist. If Rice is less efficient than these weak teams when beating them, what are they going to do in conference play?

The Owls are not shooting the ball exceptionally well, but are making up for it on the offensive glass. They are grabbing 36% of their misses, which is a great help for a team shooting just 40% from the floor. For a comparison, the Longhorns are currently making 54.6% of their shots. Today it is very likely that Rice will shoot an even lower percentage and have an even tougher time grabbing offensive boards against the bigger Texas frontcourt. That combination means that things could likely get ugly in a hurry.

Defensively, the Owls are forcing turnovers and bad shots by their opponents. This season, they have a +12 turnover differential, and are holding opponents to 30% shooting on the season. When you consider that Rice’s lone loss came against the Arizona Wildcats, you realize that their defensive shooting percentage is even more dominant in those early-season wins. If the Owls can continue their success at forcing turnovers, it could keep today’s contest a little bit closer, but will not make much of a difference in the long run.

The starting five

Rice is led by sophomore guard Connor Frizzelle, who is averaging twelve points per game this year. He is coming off a freshman campaign in which he started 21 games and scored 8.7 points per contest, and hopes to improve his defense in his second season. He also needs to work on ball control, as he has logged just one more assist than turnover so far this year. One area in which he needs no improvement is three-point shooting, where he is 12-of-22 on the season.

At forward, 6’8″ Lucas Kuipers is hoping to bounce back after missing the second half of last season with a broken wrist he suffered in January. Kuipers has 5.6 rebounds per game so far this year, and is chipping in 7.8 points as well. Although he’s doing well on the glass, he’s not afraid to step out and knock down mid-range shots, something Rice will have to do today.

Joining Kuipers in the frontcourt is Suleiman Braimoh, a junior who plays just 15 minutes per contest despite starting in each game. A Nigerian-born player from New York, Braimoh is not a long-term answer for the Rice frontcourt, but is doing a serviceable job providing leadership and experience for the more talented, younger players that Braun is developing. This year, he’s posting averages of 6.4 points and 4.6 boards per game.

Tamir Jackson is one of those talented newcomers, a freshman guard from New Jersey who was pursued by a handful of Big East schools before he signed with Rice. While he’s a combo guard, so far he has struggled with the basketball. Jackson has 19 turnovers on the year with just thirteen assists, but is still contributing to the tune of 10.4 points per game. While he needs quite a bit of seasoning, Braun believes that Jackson will be a solid anchor for future Rice backcourts.

Thanks to Jackson’s troubles handling the basketball, senior Lawrence Ghoram has had to hold down the role of floor general. Much like Braimoh, Ghoram is a player that Braun is looking to for leadership during these transition years. He has a solid assist-to-TO ratio of 2.5 this season, and improved his three-point shooting over the summer. He has hit 4-of-7 from behind the arc so far and has logged 8.6 points per game.

Off the bench

While Coach Braun was hoping to run deeper than the eight men he used last season, his rotation has been just eight men again this year. Texas A&M transfer Bryan Beasley may become the ninth man in the rotation later this year, but so far is playing less than nine minutes per game.

The key man off the bench is 6’10” center Trey Stanton, a transfer from Navy. Although he’s the sixth man, his 21.6 minutes per game is good for fourth on the team, and his 23-point, nine-rebound performance against Furman led the team to victory. Stanton is the biggest man on a small Rice team, so he will likely see a ton of minutes against the deep Texas frontcourt. If he picks up fouls early, the Owls will be absolutely abused inside for most of the afternoon.

Arsalan Kazemi is a freshman from Iran, and is the first D-I basketball player from that country. Rice is expecting great things from the 6’7″ forward, and so far his freshman campaign seems to indicate those expectations will be met. He’s leading the team with six boards per game, even though he’s only on the court for 18 minutes per contest. As he becomes more experienced and demands more time on the floor, Kazemi is going to be a force in C-USA.

Another freshman seeing solid minutes is guard A.J. Holland. His father was a longtime assistant coach in the SEC, and that basketball pedigree should mean that Holland will be a solid leader on the floor. He’s seeing just twelve minutes per game so far, but looks to be a much bigger presence next season, after Ghoram’s graduation.

Keys to the game

This one should be an easy win for the Texas Longhorns, as they have advantages in practically every category. They are bigger, deeper, and more talented than the Rice Owls. Even the crowd may end up being decidedly pro-Longhorn, negating the one edge the Owls should enjoy this afternoon.

With that being said, today’s keys to the game aren’t really necessary to win. But based on what we’ve seen from Texas’ first four performances, they will be interesting factors to watch and use as a benchmark for the team’s progress.

So far, Texas has not been great at controlling the basketball. One thing that Rice does well is forcing turnovers, so this should provide a good test of how far the Longhorn ballhandlers have come since Tuesday’s win over Pitt.

The biggest problem for Texas continues to be free throw shooting. While J’Covan Brown and Gary Johnson have proven reliable at the line and Damion James is making 73% of his free throws, there is not another Longhorn making more than 60% of their attempts. If Texas hopes to be a championship team, that will have to change. Just ask the 2008 Memphis Tigers.

Finally, we will be keeping an eye on whether the Texas guards attack the lane. Without Varez Ward, the only Longhorn who showed any inclination to drive to the basket on Tuesday night was Dogus Balbay. As a result, the Texas offense bogged down when he wasn’t in the game and the Pitt defense collapsed into the lane to negate the Longhorns’ inside game. Brown, Justin Mason, and Avery Bradley will need to start penetrating more often, or else teams will simply force Texas to beat them from outside.

This afternoon’s game might be hard for a lot of folks to see, as CBS College Sports is not available on AT&T U-verse, and is part of an add-on package for Time Warner customers. As always, you can enjoy Craig Way’s radio call from Tudor Fieldhouse, but if you want to see the action, you may have to hit up the local sports bar.