NC State gets former McDonald's All-American M.J. Rice
Marquise "M.J." Rice grew up locally and attended NC State games as a recruit while in the eighth grade.
It took some times and a tough year at Kansas, but Rice will be playing for the the Wolfpack the next three years. Rice had unofficially visited NC State on Saturday, and he was also getting interest from Ohio State, Pittsburgh, Penn State and others.
NC State targeted Rice early in his sophomore year. He played at Durham (N.C.) Academy his first two years, but a Dec. ACL tear derailed his sophomore campaign. NC State offered him shortly after his knee injury and were a major factor in his recruitment until the end, but he picked Kansas after taking official visits to Lawrence, Kan., along with Oklahoma State and Pittsburgh.
Rice's first year of college went south from the get-go at Kansas. He battled some injuries and only played in 23 games. Kansas coach Bill Self elected to not play him against NC State in the Bahamas on Nov. 23. Rice had 51 points and 24 rebounds, and shot 40.8 percent from the field and 3 of 15 on three-pointers. He backed up fellow freshman Grady Dick and senior Kevin McCullar on the wings. Dick is off to the NBA, and KU has two wings signed in the class of 2024, are hitting the portal hard, leading to Rice’s exit.
Rice attended Mouth of Wilson (Va.) Oak Hill Academy his junior year and then his senior year at Napa (Calif.) Prolific Prep. Rivals.com ranked him No. 29 overall in the country in the class of 2022.
Rice averaged 23.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists a game his junior season at Oak Hill Academy. He earned a berth in the McDonald’s All-American Game after he averaged 20.1 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game at Prolific Prep.
For traveling team ball, he started off with Team Wall, and then finished with Team Loaded NC, where he played with NC State freshman point guard L.J. Thomas and was coached by former NCSU director of operations Thomas Carr.
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