Rice’s 3-point barrage leads Texas past Colgate in first round of NCAA Tournament
From the early moments, there was little doubt that No. 2 seed Texas would prevail in its first-round game in the NCAA Tournament against Colgate on Thursday in the Midwest Regional in Des Moines, Iowa. The Longhorns obliged, rolling to an 81-61 win over the No. 15 seed Raiders to advance to the Round of 32.
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The Longhorns, the Big 12 Conference tournament champions, advance to play either seventh-seeded Texas A&M or 10th-seeded Penn State.
There were plenty of instances of excellence in Texas’ victory on Thursday, as it flexed its considerable muscle on a number of occasions and repelled the Patriot League regular season and tournament champions on a handful of occasions while doing more than enough down the stretch to post the win, its fifth straight.
Sir’Jabari Rice led Texas (27-8) with 23 points while Marcus Carr and Dylan Disu had 17 each. Tyrese Hunter scored 10 points for the Longhorns in the win. The Longhorns shot 54.4 percent from the floor while holding Colgate to 43.1 percent shooting.
The Longhorns produced plenty of highlights, including Rice tying a program individual record in the NCAAs with seven three-pointers and the Longhorns equaling a tournament team mark with 13 threes. But the most impressive statistic likely was Texas allowing Colgate – the top three-point shooting team in the nation – to just a 3-for-15 showing from beyond the arc.
It’s the 11th time this season that Rice has led the Longhorns in scoring despite coming off the bench in all but three contests.
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“I’m just happy and blessed to get this with my team because we fought hard,” Rice said. “We overcame adversity this season and (Colgate) is really good. We stuck together, and I’m just happy that we got the win and hopefully even get another one on Saturday. We just did a good job with the game plan and we trusted what we were told we needed to do.”
Texas ruled the three-point line in the first half, making 7 of its first 9 shots from distance on the way to a 35-18 lead after Rice’s basket from beyond the arc at the 7:14 mark. The Longhorns still led by 15 when Christian Bishop made a hook shot off an Arterio Morris assist with 3:48 remaining in the half.
An 8-0 run by Colgate capped by a layup by Jeff Woodward allowed the Raiders to make it 37-30 with 1:41 left before halftime. Texas answered with two free throws by Bishop and a basket by Timmy Allen before Colgate had the last points of the half to pull within eleven at the break.
The Raiders got to within 43-36 after Tucker Richardson’s layup with 18:59 to play in the game before Texas pushed its lead back to 13 points on Hunter’s three-pointer with 16:54 remaining. Colgate clawed back to within 66-57 at the 7:58 mark but Texas poured it on down the stretch, outscoring the Raiders 15-4 and waltzing to the victory.
