MAAC Basketball: Top 10 head coaches of the century (2000-20)

By Joey Loose | Jul 15, 2020

DAYTON, OH - MARCH 20: The Siena Saints celebrate a double overtime win over the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first round of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at University of Dayton Arena on March 20, 2009 in Dayton, Ohio. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

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LAWRENCE, KANSAS – NOVEMBER 15: Head coach King Rice of the Monmouth Hawks (Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images) /

10. King Rice – Monmouth (2013-2020)

After playing his college ball under Dean Smith at North Carolina, Rice began what’s turned into a pretty successful coaching career. He worked at Oregon and Providence but spent most of his career under Kevin Stallings at both Illinois State and Vanderbilt. He began his head coaching career with Monmouth in 2011 and helped the program transition as they joined the MAAC two years later.

These last seven years haven’t all been impressive, but Rice has done a fair bit of work with this program. The real breakthrough came in 2016, as his Hawks won their first regular-season title and were nearly an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Monmouth made back-to-back NIT appearances after winning another regular-season title in 2017. The last three years have not been as successful, though they won 18 games this past season.

Rice put together one of the nation’s best mid-major teams in 2016, though replicating that success has proved difficult at Monmouth. The program is trending upwards again, and it’ll be interesting to watch what happens going forward. They won at least 27 games in both of those NIT seasons, but there’s no guarantee the Hawks can ever replicate that success.