UTEP women look to conquer nemesis Rice, stay in C-USA basketball title race

The UTEP women's basketball team is on the cusp of something special.

The team picked to finish eighth out of 11 teams in Conference USA has bolted to an 11-3 start and now sits second in the league behind Middle Tennessee. With two home games this extended weekend where they will be favored, the Miners can set themselves up for a title run and their first postseason in seven years.

More:C-USA women's basketball standings

Standing square in UTEP's path to the top at noon Saturday at the Don Haskins Center is the program that has owned them the past five years. Rice is no longer the juggernaut that won three consecutive C-USA titles from 2019-21. In fact, an Owls team that started this year 9-0 with a win at Texas A&M is 1-4 in league play.

UTEP is 4-1. The Miners' one loss, the Owls' one league win, was two weeks ago in Houston when Rice broke open a close game in the final five minutes with a closing 12-1 run to win 62-53. That marked Rice's 10th consecutive victory over UTEP in a series it now leads 36-15.

Rice is just the next of 15 remaining conference games. The script still has plenty of twists and turns ahead, but Saturday the team opposite the Miners will be their personal demon.

Here is the chance to slay it in perhaps the biggest women's basketball game in the Haskins Center since the 2016 WNIT quarterfinals.

"I want to say it would be a statement, but in a way it's not a statement," said center Elina Arike, who played in the last seven games against Rice. "We are good. We are showing what people can do. Now we are the team to beat. In that way it would be a statement to the whole conference.

"Of course it would be great (to beat Rice); we can totally win that game. We should have won the last time, too. Even though I haven't won in the past, it's not an impossible thing to do."

In fact, coach Kevin Baker said the game against Rice two weeks ago should give his team confidence.

"We're good enough to beat them. We outplayed them when we were there the first time," Baker said. "We missed 18 layups; we make half of those, we win going away. It was a three-point game, two minutes to go. It got away from us at the end. Our team is hungry. We know they can beat Rice. We just have to go out and get it done."

Rice's 1-4 start to C-USA is a bit deceiving in that half of those losses are to an unbeaten-in-league Middle Tennessee team that has a realistic chance of going 20-0 in C-USA.

"When the dust settles, they'll still be in the top four," Baker predicted.

Swing player Avery Crouse has a personal nine-game losing streak to Rice, and while she says UTEP needs to treat the Owls like every other team on the schedule, she admits there is an opportunity to do something she hasn't done before.

"We take every game the same, but I want to beat them just because I haven't beaten them in my four years. I hope we do it" Saturday, she said. "I think we're capable of doing it. We just need to stay locked in for 40 minutes and play together throughout the game.

"We can do it. We're a talented team. When we play together, we're very good. We need to continue to keep moving forward and move up the ladder."

There is only one more spot on the ladder to go up for the second-place Miners, but they will need to do something they haven't done in the past four years ‒ beat Rice.

Bret Bloomquist may be reached at 915-546-6359; bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.

Rice at UTEP women

What, when, where: A Conference USA women's basketball game at noon Saturday at the Don Haskins Center

Records: UTEP is 11-3 overall, 4-1 in C-USA; Rice is 10-4, 1-4.

Tickets: $8 and $12

TV: CUSAtv

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: UTEP women look to conquer nemesis Rice, stay in C-USA title race