Inside The Huskies

Maryland's Rodney Rice Enters Portal, Draws UW Contact

The Huskies are among 23 schools who reportedly have reached out to the veteran guard.
Dan Raley|
Maryland guard Rodney Rice shoots the ball over the guard of Illinois guard Kasparas Jakucionis.
Maryland guard Rodney Rice shoots the ball over the guard of Illinois guard Kasparas Jakucionis. | Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images

On the second day of the new year, Rodney Rice came through Alaska Airlines Arena with the Maryland Terrapins and left with a 75-69 upset loss to Danny Sprinkle's University of Washington basketball team.

He played in a relatively festive January atmosphere with nearly 8,000 curious people packing the stands to see the Huskies play their first Big Ten Conference game against someone not from California.

Rice, a 6-foot-4 junior guard from Clinton, Maryland, finished with 10 points on 5-for-11 shooting, missing all four of his 3-point attempts, while playing 32 minutes.

It marked the low point of the season for the Terrapins, who would finish 27-9 and advance to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament.

Originally starting out at Virginia Tech, Rice is in the transfer portal after just one season at Maryland, according to 247Sports. He's heard from 23 schools, including Washington. He could go just about anywhere he wants.

In Rice's situation, smart money says he will end up at Villanova, where his former Terrapins coach, Kevin Willard, has relocated with a new job and presumably a hefty salary increase since the season ended.

Willard helped turn Rice into a 13.8-point scorer and a 2.1 assist man after he went through a a pair of loosely involved seasons at Virginia Tech, sitting out one as an injury redshirt, though he had 29 points in his college debut at Syracuse.

The coach made it fun and successful for Rice, turning the backcourt player into a 32-game starter and a member of an opening lineup dubbed "The Crab Five."

Rice made it to the Sweet 16 round against Florida, this accomplishment coming 37 years after his father, also Rodney, was part of a Richmond team that advanced to the same round.

With few players showing any allegiance to the UW's Sprinkle -- he has just two returnees following a last-place Big Ten finish (13-18 overall, 4-16 conference) -- the opposite could hold true in the connection between Rice and Willard.

To get the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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