Nevada head coach Dave Rice reacts during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Illinois in Chicago on Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011. | Nam Y. Huh, Associated Press
A basketball coach with deep ties to Utah is reportedly coming back to the Beehive State.
On Wednesday, JucoRecruiting.com reported that former BYU and Utah State assistant coach Dave Rice will become the next men’s basketball head coach of the Salt Lake Community College Bruins.
The move comes as former SLCC head coach Kyle Taylor left to become an assistant at Coastal Carolina.
The move is a significant one for a junior college program such as SLCC. Most notably on the 55 year-old Rice’s resume is that he was the head coach at UNLV from 2011-2016, where he posted a 98-54 record.
Prior to that, he was an assistant at Chaffey Community College, UNLV, Utah State and BYU. Partway through his time at BYU, Rice was elevated to the position of associate head coach, which helped him get the head coaching job at UNLV.
After being forced to resign at UNLV in 2016, Rice has been an assistant at Nevada, Washington and finally California Baptist this last season.
SLCC is consistently one of the best teams in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA). This last season, the Bruins were the No. 3 seed in the national tournament but were upset in the second round by No. 19 seed Connors State out of Oklahoma.
