HOUSTON – For about 10 minutes on Monday night, coach Lindsay Edmonds allowed her Rice Owls to look back.
There was a banner to unveil and rings to hand out for a 2025-26 season in which they won a program-record 29 games, went 17-1 in the American Conference and captured the league’s regular-season championship.
Then the ceremony ended.
“The coaches told us we literally had like 10 minutes to reflect on last year’s success,” Victoria Flores said. “As soon as we celebrated, enjoyed that, got to look in the rearview mirror, like we talked about, we had to lock back in because, again, we had a job to do today.”
Rice didn’t spend much time staring into the rearview mirror.
The Owls opened their 2026-27 campaign with a 72-34 win over Houston Christian, holding the Huskies to just eight made field goals, forcing 21 turnovers and limiting HCU to just 18.2% shooting.
For Edmonds, the juxtaposition was nearly perfect: celebrate the accomplishments of last year’s team, then immediately go see if this one can do more.
“What a nice opportunity to not only celebrate last year’s success, the incredible season that we had, but as soon as that was over, we looked to the future,” Edmonds said. “We looked forward, and we were ready to set the tone for what this season is going to be about.”
That’s been a constant theme leading up to the season.
At the team’s media day last week, Edmonds acknowledged that even after those 29 wins and that conference championship, the Owls came out of the season believing something was missing.
“We don’t feel like we accomplished all the goals that we had last season,” Edmonds said. “We’ve talked about, we left something on the table very, very often.”
The reminder has become embedded in the identity of what Edmonds calls “Team 48,” the 48th team in Rice women’s basketball history.
The “Pursuit of More”
Last season’s motto was TNT: Today, Not Tomorrow. This season, Coach Edmonds replaced it with POM: Pursuit of More.
More work. More shots. More repetitions. More love. More joy.
And, as Edmonds put it, “more wins, more rings.”
The challenge ahead is obvious. The Owls come into the season not as a team trying to prove themselves, but as the overwhelming conference favorite. Flores is the reigning conference player of the year and the unanimous choice to win it again. Hailey Adams was named preseason all-conference second team.
Yet players and coaches keep talking as though they’re starting from scratch.
At media day, Adams said Rice had to approach this season “as if nothing’s happened, nothing’s changed.”
“We’re at the bottom again,” she said.
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A defense that travels
Monday was the first step in showing that wasn’t just preseason rhetoric.
Remember those eight field goals scored? Half of those came in the final five minutes, once the starters had exited, meaning that through three and a half quarters, HCU made four shots from the field. Their field goal percentage lingered at or below 10% most of the night.
“We want to defend and we want to rebound,” Edmonds said. “That travels. No matter what gym we’re in, no matter what state we’re in, no matter what time zone we’re in, we should be able to defend. We should be able to rebound.”
The performance wasn’t flawless. HCU got to the line 18 times in the first half, as Rice adjusted to their constant movement. But after halftime, when those fouls were “clearly addressed,” HCU only shot four more.
“I feel like we settled in and we were much more disciplined in the second half,” Edmonds said. “We caught rhythm of how we needed to defend a little bit.”
More ways to win
Opening night also offered an early glimpse of how Rice plans to replace some of what it lost without changing everything that made last season work.
Flores, for example, attempted only one shot in the first half, but that changed quickly in the second half.
Edmonds acknowledged that after discussing all the fouls, there was a short conversation about her star guard becoming more aggressive. Flores responded with a flurry of points to begin the second half and finished as the game’s leading scorer.
“Vic sets the tone for us,” Edmonds said. “When she’s not hunting and when she’s not aggressive, she’s not at her best.”
Rice also got production from other pieces that could be key as the season progresses.
Louann Battiston, last season’s American Sixth Player of the Year, moved into the starting lineup and ran the offense with flair, finishing with eight assists and providing some needed first-half scoring when the stars weren’t getting their shots. Adams grabbed 16 rebounds and was an absolute menace defensively.
Jordin Blackmon, who made just seven 3-pointers all of last season, provided one of the night’s loudest moments when she buried three in a span of about 90 seconds.
Eleven Owls played and 10 scored.
That depth was something both Edmonds and her players emphasized before the season. Adams said at media day that she had seen more players in the gym voluntarily during the summer than at any point in her Rice career. Monday was the first chance to see what all of that more might produce.
“I love that everybody that came in contributed and did something to help us,” Edmonds said. “I think our depth is something that can be great for us.”
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Building a résumé for March
The question now is how much of Monday’s dominance will travel.
Rice won’t have long to find out.
The Owls head to Richmond this weekend for the Multi-Conference Opening Weekend Showcase, facing Murray State on Friday and Richmond on Sunday. Both were NCAA tournament teams last season.
Games like these matter significantly for a program that learned last March just how little margin for error exists for a mid-major.
Rice’s 29 wins weren’t enough to earn an at-large NCAA bid after the Owls lost to UTSA in the American tournament championship game.
Edmonds has made clear she learned from that experience.
At media day, she talked openly about the importance of stronger scheduling, protecting against damaging losses and making sure programs like Rice are properly discussed when the selection committee meets. “We’ve got to win,” Edmonds said. “We got to schedule hard. We got to make sure our stories are being told.”
That makes this upcoming weekend more than just an early-season test. It’s part of Rice’s attempt to build the kind of résumé that doesn’t leave its NCAA Tournament fate riding on a single game in March.
Monday was just the opening salvo, and Houston Christian is not the kind of team that’ll determine whether Rice has reached that next level.
But there was something fitting about the way the night unfolded.
The Owls walked in with championship rings waiting and a banner ready to hang. They walked out with the fewest points allowed in the Edmonds era and a 38-point victory.
Last season is now literally hanging over them. Edmonds just doesn’t want her team dwelling on it.
“The bar is set really, really high for what the rest of the season needs to look like,” she said.
Rice knows exactly the “more” it’s pursuing. Now, the Owls just have to go get it.
