Santa Clara at Rice

Santa Clara certainly has a misleading record at this point as they enter here at 6-4, but have two wins over teams below Div-1. They beat Houston Baptist and escaped by three against Cal Bakersfield - hardly notable opponents. Rice is the deeper team here with nine players getting meaningful minutes and contributing. With Ben Dowdell out, that puts Santa Clara down to six contributing players, and will be the reason for their fade late in this one against a deep and equally talented Rice team. I'll back the Owl's here.