"My rule was I wouldn't recruit a kid if he had grass in front of his house.
That's not my world. My world was a cracked sidewalk." —Al McGuire

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Former MU assistant paying big dividends for Pitt

I had the opportunity to work with Mike Rice for several years when he was an assistant at Marquette under former coach Mike Deane. Rice was a terrific guy, fun to talk to and really knew his basketball. He played at Fordham and his father had been the Duquense coach for many years (then the Portland Trailblazers color analyst where I believe he still resides today). He was the one guy on the staff that matched my golfing abilities at the time (I suspect now he has become even better while my game is in the tank).

I lost track of Rice's whereabouts a few years ago until I noticed he surfaced at St. Joe's. Now he's in his first season at Pitt and just landed one of the top players in the country from St. Anthony's in New Jersey.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review does a nice write-up on "Rice Cakes" in today's edition.

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