Marshall collected its seventh consecutive loss Saturday night.  Taevion Kinsey scores 31 points tying his career high, but the Thundering Herd lost by a final score of 87-77 to the Rice Owls.  

The Rice Owls, throughout the night, were successfully outscored Marshall through the three-point shot. At the night’s end, the Owls had a three-point percentage of 60%, going 12-20 from beyond the arc. At the end of the night, Marshall had a percentage of 19.4 going 6-31.  

In the early minutes of the game, Marshall was able to contend closely with the Owls, keeping the point deficit within single digits. However, throughout the first half and heading into halftime, the Rice Owls were able to pull away through three-point shooting. At the half, the Owls had a thirteen-point lead against Marshall.  

In the first 15 minutes, Marshall played its best basketball of the night and came back from the thirteen-point deficit at the half. With eight minutes and 35 seconds remaining in the contest, Marshall was able to come back and tie the game.  

For the next few minutes after the tie, the Herd and the Owls were trading baskets; however, Marshall was never able to get the lead in the ballgame successfully.  

After the game, Marshall guard Kinsey talked about the frustration about having the game be close at the end and not being able to close the game out. “It’s been the constant for a couple of games,” said Kinsey. “I mean you put your hand on the stove and you get burnt and you put your hand on the stove again, and I feel like we’re constantly killing ourselves another team isn’t killing us their making shots but we are killing ourselves, and this is not the third, fourth or fifth I don’t even know this is the sixth, seventh game we lost to man in a crucial moment of the game and it has to stop.” Kinsey added that “we have to making the winning plays in the stretch.” 

Head Coach Dan D’Antoni addressed the lack of offense and spoke about how in Conference

USA and in basketball, there is a great need for shooting. “That’s what I told the young kids that are on our bench if you can’t shoot you can’t play in this league. You can’t play basketball anymore without shooters you have to have shooters especially at our level if your not getting the big physical athlete that the G5’s grab up.” D’Antoni mentioned “So you got to be skilled and that’s the biggest and most important skill is shooting and right now we are not shooting the ball well enough to beat teams that shoot like they do.”  

With the loss, Marshall falls to 0-4 in Conference Play and 7-10 overall. Marshall is back in action Thursday night when the Thundering Herd takes on the Florida International Panthers. Tipoff is at 7:00, and the game will be broadcasted on ESPN Plus.