{"id":18064,"date":"2024-02-12T16:04:49","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T21:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=18064"},"modified":"2024-02-22T10:54:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:54:05","slug":"home-court-harmony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/home-court-harmony\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Court Harmony"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

King Rice finally has the chance to coach one of his kids, and he wouldn\u2019t trade it for anything. Not even for the chance to go back in time and start coaching him four years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That seemed like a possibility\u2014the coaching, not the time travel\u2014when Xander Rice, the older of the Monmouth men\u2019s basketball coach\u2019s two sons, was deciding on his college destination back in 2019. Instead, Xander committed to Bucknell, where he played four seasons for the Bison, led the team in scoring and assists as a senior, and earned a psychology degree. His dad insists that Xander choosing not to play for him back then was best for both of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t mature enough,\u201d King Rice says. \u201cI would\u2019ve been pushing him so hard I probably would\u2019ve messed up his college experience.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xander says his dad is being too hard on himself\u2014\u201cI think we would\u2019ve figured it out,\u201d he says but they agree that their belated pairing was worth the wait. Weighing his options for a post graduate transfer last summer, Xander eschewed interest from high-major programs\u2014reportedly including six-figure name, image, and likeness licensing offers\u2014and chose Monmouth, where he\u2019s spending his final season of college eligibility leading the way for the Hawks. And for his dad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Rice says the process wasn\u2019t as clear-cut as outsiders might assume. It was Xander who first broached the subject of where he should spend a post-grad year, and King said he felt it was \u201ca no-brainer\u201d that Xander would come \u201chome\u201d to Monmouth; a fixture at games and practices, he\u2019d practically grown up in the Hawks\u2019 gym, and both knew that Xander\u2019s mom, Summer, and his younger brother, Julian, would be thrilled to have him around. But King Rice insisted that if Xander was interested, he\u2019d leave it to his staff\u2014particularly assistant coaches Rick Callahan and Brian Reese\u2014to recruit his son. \u201cIf he was coming here,\u201d King Rice says, \u201cit was going to be because it was best for him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s turned out to be a perfect fit for all involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been incredible,\u201d King Rice says. \u201cHe\u2019s even better as a player than I thought he was\u2014he can score from all three levels, and he\u2019s better on defense than I thought. And the way he\u2019s taken over a leadership role, the way he puts in the work, and just how he handles himself, the younger guys really look up to him.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

His high school coach once said to me, \u2018How do you grow up in such a beautiful place and still have an edge on the court?\u2019 He\u2019s a tough competitor, because he hates losing. Everybody wants a kid like him on their team.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t take his teammates long to realize Xander, a 6-foot-3 point guard, was a special addition to the roster. Back in November, in just the second game of the season, the Hawks traveled to Morgantown, West Virginia, to take on the Mountaineers. Xander Rice scored 30 points to lead Monmouth to a 73-65 road upset of the Big 12 hosts. Through 20 games, he was averaging a team-high 21.1 points along with 3.1 assists, production he credits to \u201cplaying with consistent confidence, which I kind of struggled with in the past. I think that\u2019s the biggest thing for me, because this team needs me to do a lot on both ends of the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that, he shares much in common with his father. King Rice was the higher-profile recruit, earning McDonald All-America honors as a high school point guard and going on to captain the 1991 North Carolina Tar Heels to the NCAA Final Four. Xander has three inches on his dad, and King Rice says that\u2019s not the only way his son has surpassed him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s way smarter than me,\u201d the coach says. \u201cHe can do all the things you would think a coach\u2019s son does, and he\u2019s tough. He grew up down here, and his high school coach once said to me, \u2018How do you grow up in such a beautiful place and still have an edge on the court?\u2019 He\u2019s a tough competitor, because he hates losing. Everybody wants a kid like him on their team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their shared competitiveness is invaluable, but also, both admit, occasionally combustible: Xander laughs when he says he sometimes comes home heated after a rough practice, \u201cand my mom\u2019s mad at my dad because he made me mad, and I just stay in my room.\u201d But the difficult moments have been far outweighed by the good ones, both on and off the court. Just as Xander has no regrets about going away for college, he has no second thoughts about coming home for one last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing here has been a learning curve, but really it\u2019s been a dream come true,\u201d he says. \u201cI can go home, hang out with my little brother, my mom and my dad, and my dog. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve really appreciated.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his part, King Rice calls the situation \u201ca blessing.\u201d And the best part of coaching his son? Easy: \u201cTo see him having success, and just to see him smiling on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

King and Xander Rice are proving their delayed court connection was worth the wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":18074,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":66,\"y\":13}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Athletics","issue":"Fall\/Winter 2023","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18064"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18079,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18064\/revisions\/18079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}