The Rice Owls men's basketball program is the intercollegiate men's basketball program of

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

. The program is classified in the

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

's Division I, and the team competes in the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (AAC), also known as The American, is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States, featuring 13 full member universities and 6 affiliate member universities that compete in t ...

. They previously participated in the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference also included schools from Oklaho ...

(1914–1996), the

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the Western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, Texas, Utah and Washington (state), Washington. Due to ...

(1996–2005), and

Conference USA Conference USA (CUSA) is a collegiate athletic conference of member institutions in the Southern and Western United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. CUSA's offices are located in Dallas, Texas. Mem ...

(2005–2023). The Owls play their home games in Tudor Fieldhouse, which they have called home since 1950. Previously known as Rice Gymnasium, it was renamed in honor of Rice alum Bobby Tudor, who spearheaded the 2008 renovation of the facility with a multimillion-dollar donation. Rice has appeared four times in the

NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as March Madness, or The Big Dance, is a single-elimination tournament played in the United States to determine the men's college basketball national champion of the NCAA Division I, Di ...

, most recently in 1970. Their 54 years without making the Tournament is currently the fifth longest in active history. Rice has never reached a conference tournament final in any of the conferences they have played in (

Southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...

, WAC,

, The American).

Head coaches

Postseason history

NCAA tournament results

The Owls have appeared in four NCAA Tournaments. Their combined record is 2–5. Their drought of 53 years is the eighth longest drought between appearances in the NCAA Division I Tournament history.

NIT results

The Owls have appeared in five

National Invitation Tournament The National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is an annual men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Since 2023, all rounds of the tournament are played at various sites across the country whi ...

s. Their combined record is 1–5.

CBI results

The Owls have appeared in three

College Basketball Invitational The College Basketball Invitational (CBI) is a men's college basketball tournament created in 2007 by The Gazelle Group. The inaugural tournament occurred after the conclusion of the 2007–08 men's college basketball regular season. The CBI sel ...

(CBI) tournaments. Their combined record is 2–3.

CIT results

The Owls have appeared in one CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament (CIT). Their combined record is 2–1.

Players of note

Owls in the NBA

* Morris Almond * Ken Austin * Bill Closs *

Mike Harris Michael Deane Harris (born January 23, 1945) is a retired Canadian politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC Party) from 1990 to 2002. Taking the PC ...

* Bill Henry * Bob Kinney * Trey Murphy III *

Ricky Pierce Richard Charles Pierce (born August 19, 1959) is an American former professional basketball player. Nicknamed "Deuces" and "Big Paper Daddy", he was selected as an NBA All-Star (1991) and was twice the NBA Sixth Man of the Year (1987, 1990) whi ...

* Brent Scott * Mike Wilks *

Drew Peterson Drew Walter Peterson (born January 5, 1954) is an American convicted murderer and former Bolingbrook, Illinois, police sergeant who was found guilty in 2012 of the murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, a few months after their 2003 divorce. ...

* Quincy Olivari

Owls in international basketball

Suleiman Braimoh Suleiman Okhaifoede Braimoh Jr. (born October 19, 1989) is a Nigerian professional basketball player for Karşıyaka Basket of the Basketbol Süper Ligi (BSL). He played college basketball for Rice University before playing professionally in the ...

(born 1989), Nigerian-American in the

Israel Basketball Premier League Ligat HaAl (, lit., ''Supreme League or Premier League''), or the Israeli Basketball Premier League, is a professional basketball league in Israel and the highest level of basketball in the country. The league's name is abbreviated as either BSL ...

Egor Koulechov Egor Koulechov (, ; born November 5, 1994) is an Israeli-Russian professional basketball player for Hapoel Be'er Sheva of the Israeli Basketball Premier League. He played college basketball for Arizona State, Rice, and Florida before playing prof ...

(born 1994), Israeli-Russian basketball player for Israeli team

Ironi Nahariya Ironi Nahariya Basketball Club () known for sponsorship reasons as Ironi Rain Nahariya () is a professional basketball club based in city of Nahariya in northern Israel. The team plays in the Liga Leumit (the second tier of Israeli basketball) and ...

Politicians

Glenn Youngkin Glenn Allen Youngkin (born December 9, 1966) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 74th governor of Virginia since 2022. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he spent 25 years at the Private equi ...

(born 1966), 74th

Governor of Virginia The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia is the head of government of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. The Governor (United States), governor is head of the Government_of_Virginia#Executive_branch, executive branch ...

Retired numbers

Rice University has

retired Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

six numbers.

References

External links

* {{American Athletic Conference men's basketball navbox Basketball teams established in 1914