Men’s Basketball Prepare for First Road Action in 2017

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Middle Tennessee heads on the road Thursday for its first road test of the 2017 Conference USA schedule, taking on the Rice Owls in Houston.

The Blue Raiders and Owls have met six times previously with MT holding a 4-2 advantage while Head Coach Kermit Davis is 2-2 against Rice all-time and 2-1 since joining Conference USA.

Davis and the Raiders got the best of the Owls, 87-73, last season in Murfreesboro but lost a 71-68, double overtime decision when the teams last met in Houston two seasons ago.

Middle Tennessee (11-3) opened up conference play Sunday with a 60-49 win over preseason league favorite UAB. Senior Reggie Upshaw tallied a career-high 34 points in the contest and was name C-USA Player of the Week following the career outing.

Upshaw (15.4 ppg), senior JaCorey Williams (17.4) and junior Giddy Potts (15.9) all stand in the Top 11 in Conference USA in scoring and are the only such trio in the league.

However, Rice (11-4) – who boasts the second-highest scoring offense in Conference USA at 83.3 points per game – has a pair of elite scorers in the top five in the league in Egor Koulechov (18.2) and Marcus Evans (18.0).

The Owls played a pair of road contests last weekend, falling to Old Dominion, 62-56, in their lowest-scoring game of the season before defeating Charlotte 89-70.

The Raiders and Owls tip off at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday at Tudor Fieldhouse.