Eli Rice signs with Nebraska basketball
Eli Rice is officially a Husker.
The 6-foot-7, 195-pound guard out of IMG (Fla.) Academy signed his National Letter of Intent with Nebraska on Wednesday to officially become the lone signee of Fred Hoiberg's 2023 recruiting class.
Rice, who transferred to IMG for the 2022-23 season after playing at Beech (Tenn.) High School, is a three-star recruit who brings some valuable traits to Hoiberg's program.
“Eli is a guard with good positional size and length and the versatility to play several positions in our system,” Hoiberg said. “He is a good scorer who can make plays for others and rebounds well for his position. Eli has a lot of potential for development, as he played just two years of high school basketball and is young for graduating class. I think his best basketball days are ahead of him.”
Rice, who turned 18 in August, averaged 17.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.1 blocks per game last season at Beech. He helped head coach Kip Brown’s team to a 34-2 record, including a 33-game win streak, and the school’s first appearance in the state tournament since 2010. He was named to the Tennessee Sports Writers Association's all-state high school boys basketball teams in Class 4A and was named the Sumner County Player of the Year. He was also a first-team all-county pick at Station Camp (Tenn.) during his junior season.
Rice picked Nebraska over a group of offers that included Georgetown and VCU, which were the other schools in his final three. He visited Lincoln for an official visit July 31-Aug. 2 and that's what sparked his love for the Husker program.
“The biggest thing that stood out to me was the facilities and resources they have, as well as the coaches and staff. They’re all very dedicated to take Nebraska basketball to another level,” Rice told Inside Nebraska. “The technology they had and the cafeteria they had for the athletes helped, but it was mostly just the vibes that made me want to commit. Everyone there was super genuine.”
The visit to Lincoln was a success on multiple fronts as Rice learned more about Lincoln as well as the coaches and current players. He also got some more information about how Hoiberg and his staff would use him in their system.
“The way he uses and teaches spacing on the court stood out to me,” Rice added. “They said they would use me both on the ball and off the ball, and that the offense they run would open up many driving lanes for me.”
Rice soon chose to commit to Hoiberg and the Huskers while he was on his visit.
“It changed my mind a lot," Rice said of his visit. "The flight to Nebraska made it seem like it was all fields, but once I got there it was totally different. Lincoln is super nice."
Rice is the lone Husker signee after 2023 guard Chase Clemmons decommitted from Nebraska in September. He will look to be the fourth Husker basketball letterwinner from Tennessee and the first since Amos Gregory in 1992-93.