SMU wins third straight with emphatic second half drubbing of Rice, 95-69

SMU basketball trailed by nine points with just under four minutes to play in the first half before dominating the rest of the way en route to a 26-point road victory in Houston to make it three-straight wins.

Score: SMU 95, Rice 69
Record: 16-7, 7-3
Next Game: vs. UNT, 1 p.m. Sunday (ESPNU) 

Player of the Game: Zhuric Phelps continues to play some of the best basketball of his career. Not only did he lead with 16 points, but he was involved in everything. He had five rebounds, six assists and two steals to go with zero turnovers. He was 0-for-3 from 3 and didn’t get to the free throw line, but was 8-of-11 from inside the 3-point line.

Leading Scorers: Phelps (16, six assists), Ricardo Wright (15, 4-8 3s), Chuck Harris (11), Samuell Williamson (10, eight rebounds), Keon Ambrose-Hylton (10).

Sequence of the Game: SMU finished the final 3:34 of the first half on a 14-2 run and then opened the second half, the first 3:47 on a 15-2 run that turned the game from an eight-point deficit into a 16-point lead in over seven minutes of game time.

The rest of the story: The Mustangs took control of the game in that final stretch of the first half and never let it go. Not only did five SMU players score in double figures, all 11 players who played at least two minutes scored at least four points, 12 players had at least one rebound and nine players had at least one assist. SMU shot over 58% in the second half and held Rice to under 43% for the half and just over 46% for the game. The Mustangs went on another big run, 12-0, to take a 27-point lead and then used a late 9-3 run to go up by a game-high 29 points with 1:35 to play.

Notable Stat I: Not only did SMU assist on 24 of the 41 shots made, it only had four turnovers for the game — a 6-1 ratio — no player had more than one turnover. 

Notable Stat II: Ambrose-Hylton was a perfect 5-for-5 shooting with four of them being dunks. Mo Njie was 2-for-2 while both Tyreek Smith and Jaheim Hudson were 3-for-4 each making SMU’s big men 13-for-15 or a whopping 87% as the Mustangs racked up 50 points in the paint.

Notable Stat III: This is the fourth streak of at least three-straight wins this season. They can match a season-high with a fourth straight win against UNT, the same team that snapped SMU’s last three-game winning streak.

Final Word: The Mustangs proved they could win close games the last two times out, beating Tulane by four and UAB by three but got back to their big-win ways with their sixth win of at least 20 points and first since the 103-70 win against Tulsa on Jan. 20. It took about 16 minutes for the Mustangs to really find their footing in the game, but once they did they never let it go. Even some spurts where they got a little sloppy, they still played good basketball and never let Rice get anywhere near back in the game. These are the types of wins this SMU team needs if it even wants to think about postseason play come March. Now they have to do it against good teams, which they will see at Moody on Sunday.

Coach Lanier said: “The group that was on the floor gave us a great response. We put together some stops, we made some shots. … What I said to them in the (under four-minute) timeout, ‘It’s like we’re playing against the Globetrotters tonight. It’s embarrassing how they’re getting everything they want and it’s like I’m coaching the Washington Generals.’ That’s how I felt, how easy everything was. Everything they did on film, they did against us and that was disappointing. Fortunately, the guys did respond.”