Feedback on my feature on UNLV men's basketball head coach Dave Rice, please

Hello,
Please take a look at my feature story on UNLV head coach Dave Rice, after he was just hired. The angle is pretty much from a Mt. San Antonio College/Walnut point of view, since I was writing it for Walnut.Patch.com. I called coach Rice from his office at UNLV, guy couldn't have been nicer.
For those who don't like my lead, it was re-written by my Editor. No excuses, just saying. She didn't at least let me know about it before she did it. Oh well.
Thanks,
Bruce Bourquin


Former Mountie Gets Ultimate College Basketball Coaching Post
-Dave Rice, who played at Mt. SAC and was a part of Coach Jerry Tarkanian's dominating Runnin' Rebels in the 1990s, returns to his alma mater to become UNLV's head coach.

By Bruce Bourquin
July 27, 2011
At one time, they were cooler than the Rat Pack in Vegas. Dave Rice was a member of the UNLV basketball team and the Runnin’ Rebels were the hottest ticket in town. They were Showtime Jr. -- running college basketball’s version of the West Coast Offense.

With that same team, Rice also went through the worst – including the start of an NCAA investigation.

Through it all, Rice never lost focus of the fundamentals of the game – stifling defense, fast-break offense. Twenty years later, he was hired as the head basketball coach at UNLV.

The 42-year-old Claremont native, who played for a year at Mt. Sac before heading to UNLV, is serving as a head coach at any level for the first time in his career, after having been an assistant coach at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, Utah State and UNLV from 1991-2004.

Rice is taking over a Runnin’ Rebels team that also has high expectations. He, in part, helped set the bar in 1990 as part of the team that won the NCAA national championship. That team featured NBA stars like current assistant coach Stacey Augmon, Larry Johnson, Greg Anderson and Anderson Hunt, the Most Outstanding Player of the 1990 tournament.

Last season, under coach Lon Kruger, UNLV reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament, and was eliminated by Illinois. UNLV had its opening after Kruger left to become the new head coach at the University of Oklahoma.

“I’ll be forever grateful for Coach ‘Tark’,” Rice said. “When I was hired by him in 1991, twenty years later in 2011 when I was named head coach, that was really special to have him at our press conference.”

His up-tempo style and pressure defense is something Rice wants to emulate in his stay at UNLV. From 1991-2004, Rice served as an assistant coach under Tim Grgurich, Bill Bayno and Charlie Spoonhour. After a one-year stint at Utah State, he was an assistant from 2005-2011 at BYU.

Rice had recently served as the associate head coach for BYU since 2008. Last season, No. 3 seed BYU advanced to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, and were eliminated by No. 2 Florida. It was the highest seed in BYU’s history, and Jimmer Fredette went on to lead the NCAA Division I in scoring at 28.9 points per game. He also racked up career, single season and single game scoring records at 49 points in Dec. 28, 2009 in a game against the University of Arizona. Fredette was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks with the 10th overall pick in the NBA Draft, and then was quickly traded to the Sacramento Kings.

The previous season, Rice was part of a coaching staff that led BYU to its first NCAA tournament victory in 17 years, beating Florida. The Cougars were in the Top 25 for at least one or two weeks every year for the past five seasons.

“It’s amazing what you can do if you get a group of good players that focus on playing as a team,” Rice said of his BYU coaching days. “I think the biggest thing is to have them all 100 percent committed to winning as a team.”

Rice still remembers his first college basketball experience with the Mounties fondly and appreciated the skills he learned under coach Raif Osterkamp.

“I really enjoyed my time at Mt. SAC,” Rice said recently. “I went to Mt. SAC to play for (former) Coach Gene Victor in the spring of ’87. I enjoyed playing for Coach Osterkamp. I felt I got a great education. I highly recommend community college. I had a well-rounded time. I think every experience you have in life can add to the things that you’ve learned.”

Right after graduating with a political science degree from UNLV, Rice was very close to going to law school or medical school. Jerry Tarkanian, former UNLV head coach and the winningest coach in NCAA basketball history with 990 career wins, convinced him to go into coaching. Coach Tarkanian was quoted in The Las Vegas Review-Journal as saying Rice is a ‘very good person’, but also noted that he and fans in Las Vegas thought the new head coach was going to be former UNLV and NBA player Reggie Theus, a Minnesota Timberwolves assistant coach and former Sacramento Kings head coach who had success in leading New Mexico State to a 25-9 record and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2007.

“We want to get faster on offense,” Rice said. “We want to push the ball, but never sacrifice shot selection. That’s the goal. We want to pressure the ball, deny passing lines, while at the same time have the ability to score in the half-court.”

UNLV holds other great memories as well. Rice noted that he started seeing his wife, Mindy, also a Claremont native and UNLV graduate, during the summer between Mt. SAC and UNLV, and they got married in October, 1991, soon after he graduated from UNLV.

“It was great coaching at my alma mater (from 1991-2004),” Rice said. “It became home … she’s been there every step of the way.”

One of the first people Rice called was his father, Lowell Rice, a longtime former Claremont High School boys basketball head coach.

“He was a mentor to me,” Rice said. “It was really exciting to let him know I’d be offered the job. I also called (San Diego State head coach) Steve Fisher to get permission to speak with his assistant coach, Justin Hutson, to offer him our assistant head coaching job.”

San Diego State won the Mountain West Conference and reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament last season, before losing in Anaheim on March 24 to eventual champion Connecticut.

Rice has also been busy recruiting players, like Bishop Gorman High School, Las Vegas product Shabazz Muhammad, one of the biggest hoops recruits in Vegas history, who has also been recruited by Duke, Kentucky, Arizona, UCLA, and several other schools. Muhammad played for Rice’s brother, Grant Rice, the head coach at Bishop Gorman.

“Every day is a challenge,” Rice said. “Recruiting against very good schools is fun. Someone is always trying to beat you.”

Rice has a pretty strong team coming back. Chace Stanback, a 6-foot-8 forward transfer from UCLA who can also play guard, scored 11 points per game last season, second on the team, and is the leading returning scorer. Oscar Bellfield is a 6-2 point guard who averaged 9.7 points per game, was second in the Mountain West Conference at 4.8 assists per game, led the MWC in 2.5 assists-to-turnover per game and is the second leading returning scorer.

Bryce Jones, a former USC shooting guard at 6-foot-5, transferred to UNLV and will sit out this season. Jones scored 11 points per game after starting the Trojans’ first 10 games, before a transfer guard took his minutes and he came off the bench. Freshmen-to-be point guard Daquan Cook, the program’s first committed new player, is also on the team.

Kaitin Reinhardt, a Mater Dei Star in Santa Ana who de-committed from USC, is another recruiting target and has said he won’t decide until October or November, but was quoted as saying he likes what Rice did with Fredette and loves his style of play.

 

Re: Take a quick look at my feature, please

First and only 'bump'.

 

Bruce, you did a good job providing all the pertinent background info for the new man in charge at UNLV. Factually, it's all there. My main suggestions are stylistic. I think you could make it tighter and flow better. Here's how:


1. "is serving as a head coach at any level for the first time in his career" doesn't sound as
fluid as "for the first time in his career is a head coach at any level"

2. "UNLV had its opening after Kruger left..." is slightly clunky. Maybe "The UNLV post opened when Kruger left..." or leave out the part about the UNLV job opening altogether since you'd already explained Kruger had been coach last season.

3. "Rice had recently served as the associate head coach for BYU since 2008." seems
extraneous unless there something he specifically learned at this position that he
hadn't learned in his previous three years at BYU.

4. To tighten, take out "Right" and "very" in the following sentence: "Right after graduating with a political science degree from UNLV, Rice was very close to going to law school or medical school."

5. Unpack and clutter the following: "...Reggie Theus, a Minnesota Timberwolves assistant coach and former Sacramento Kings head coach who had success in leading New Mexico State to a 25-9 record and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2007."

I suggest "Theus, who led New Mexico State to a 25-9 record and 2007 NCAA Tournament appearance before coaching with the Sacramento Kings and Minnesto Timberwolves."

6. Do the same with the ending: "... is another recruiting target and has said he won’t decide until October or November, but was quoted as saying he likes what Rice did with Fredette and loves his style of play."

I suggest: "is another recruiting target who said he won't choose a college until at least October. He likes Fredette's style of play, and how Rice developed it, according to [the source of this quote]"