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Hello, everyone and welcome back to The Huddle where today we have a fun topic, or at least I think it’s fun, but the Rice Raiders lost their first district game of the year, and I am going to tell you why.
To start, we must tip our caps to the Columbus Cardinals because they played an amazing game on both ends of the floor. We’re not here to talk about that in depth today though, and if you missed the game Friday night, you missed a good one.
One last thing before getting started, I am strictly analyzing a loss of a once undefeated team. I do not think this loss defines them or even shows who they are as a team.
I just see an undefeated team lose their first game and I naturally ask, “What happened?” The Raiders may not appreciate me breaking this all down in a public setting after the loss, but I am fully convinced this team will bounce back from this loss.
Today we are looking at Rice and how a seemingly unstoppable force was stopped. Well, let’s start with the obvious and that is free throws.
The Raiders struggled heavily from the free throw line with under a minute left. They had the game well in hand and all that had to happen was score two free throws and they win the game.
They could not do that though and I said it while watching the game, but they left the barn doors wide open. For Columbus to comeback and either win or tie. As talented as they are the Raiders could not cash in at the free throw line and it cost them big down the stretch.
The second part of their loss comes from the frustration they showed late in the game. The most glaring of this frustration being them receiving a tech right at the beginning of overtime.
At that point in the game, it was obviously tied but overtimes are tricky when it comes to momentum and could’ve gone either way and this game was no different. But once the Raiders were served a tech and the Cards got three points for free because of it, it set the tone for the rest of the game.
I know this is cliche but there has to be times in games where players recognize the situation, they are in. I’ll be the first to tell you those refs made some questionable calls, and I would have been frustrated to so I can’t necessarily blame the Raiders for reacting the way they did.
But at the end of the day the only thing players can control is how they react to things, and it was just a hard pill to swallow right as the pivotal overtime period started.
Like I said earlier, this loss in no way defines this team at all. They played a team with a chip on their shoulder, lost one of their starters at the start of overtime and were on the road.
It was the perfect game for them to lose.
Now it is time to see where they go from here and get ready because they are about to ascend even higher.
