Rice Owls announce 2011-2012 women's basketball schedule

Posted: September 9, 2011, 11:02 a.m. CDT.

Greg Williams, Rice Owls women's basketball head coach, announced the Owls' 2011-2012 basketball schedule today.

The non-conference schedule features seven road games and six home games, in addition to the 16 Conference USA games. The Owls open the season with two contests on the road - Prairie View A&M (November 11) and Oklahoma State (November 13).

Rice has its home opener on November 16 vs. Houston Baptist (7 p.m.), before heading north to compete at Chicago State (November 18) and at Valparaiso (November 20).

"We are taking a trip to Chicago to return senior D'Frantz Smart to her hometown where she played at Whitney Young High School," says head coach Greg Williams. "That's a tradition that we have at Rice, in that we try get our out-of-state kids back to their local area in their senior year."

The non-conference portion of the schedule wraps up with three games on the road - SFA (December 20), UTSA (December 30), and Lamar (January 2).

Conference USA women's basketball games again will be held on Thursdays and Sundays. The Owls open C-USA action at UAB on January 5, before retuning home to host SMU (January 8) and Tulane (January 12).

Other home C-USA dates include Southern Miss (January 22), East Carolina (January 26), UTEP (February 5), Tulsa (February 12), and Houston (February 23). Rice's senior night takes place on March 1 vs. Memphis.

The Conference USA Championship this season will be hosted by Memphis. Action takes place inside Elma Roane Fieldhouse and the FedEx Forum (March 7-10).

The Owls posted an 18-14 record last season and placed third in the C-USA standings at 10-6. Coach Williams returns four starters including sophomore forward Jessica Kuster who, a year ago, was named as the league's Freshman of the Year and was selected to the All-C-USA First Team after averaging 14.1 points per game and 10.6 rebounds. D'Frant Smart returns to lead the Owls. Last season, Smart set a Rice season record with 189 assists. Furthermore, Smart only needs 38 assists to surpass Kim Lawson's (1999-03) mark of 475 to hold the Rice career assist record.

Click here to see the entire 2011-2012 schedule.