Highly touted Maryland transfer guard Rodney Rice released his top six including Tennessee basketball on Thursday afternoon. The Vols joined a top group that includes Auburn, Gonzaga, a return to Maryland, Southern Cal and Villanova.
Rice was a part of one of the Big 10’s best backcourts last season, averaging 13.8 points per game on 37% shooting from three-point range while adding 2.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game.
A Clinton, Maryland native, Rice was even better in conference play. Over the last 20 games of Maryland’s season, Rice averaged 15.5 points per game while helping lead the Terrapins to the program’s first Sweet 16 appearance since 2016. He averaged 14.8 points in Big 10 regular season games.
The 6-foot-4 guard spent just one season playing for his home state Terrapins, entering the transfer portal after Maryland head coach Kevin Willard left to become the head coach at Villanova. Despite entering the transfer portal, Rice is keeping the door open for a potential return to Maryland to place for Buzz Williams.
Rice held Zoom meetings with both Gonzaga and Southern Cal earlier this week and begins an on-campus visit with Villanova today. The highly touted shooting guard begins a visit with Tennessee on Saturday before returning to Maryland on Sunday.
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Tennessee has one highly significant connection with Rice. The shooting guard’s backcourt running mate last season at Maryland, Ja’Kobi Gillespie, has already signed with Tennessee basketball out of the transfer portal. Gillespie is joining Rice in Knoxville for his visit this weekend. The duo combined to average 31.1 points per game in 20 Big 10 games last season while shooting 39% from three-point range.
“That’s my roommate so we’re super close,” Gillespie told RTI about Rice last week. “I really want him to come. He knows I really want him to come. He knows I really want him to come so I feel like he’s really interested so we’ll have to see how it goes.”
Rice is one of the top players available in the transfer portal with 247sports ranking him as a four-star and the No. 22 player in the portal, On3 ranking him as a four-star and the No. 32 player in the portal and EvanMiya ranking him as a four-star and the No. 78 player available in the portal.
Rick Barnes and his staff currently have four scholarships to work with. They return four scholarship players from last season’s team, add three high school prospects and have Gillespie and Vanderbilt forward Jaylen Carey committed out of the transfer portal.
