In early October, Arizona head coach Adia Barnes said she hoped to add three more players to a 2022 class that already included two top 35 players. While Barnes couldn’t mention names, it was assumed that those three were Lemyah Hylton, Ysabella Fontleroy, and No. 2 overall prospect Kiki Rice. Barnes is one-for-two with those who have announced their commitments with Hylton pledging to the Wildcats and Fontleroy announcing for Baylor. Rice, the biggest fish left in the recruiting pond, is still uncommitted. That will end on Thursday, Nov. 4 at 3 p.m. MST she announced today via social media.
Rice is the top point guard in the class of 2022 and will make a huge impact wherever she goes. If she chooses the Wildcats, she will immediately become the highest-ranked recruit to ever commit to Arizona and just their second top 10 recruit in program history. The other top 10 Wildcat commit is Maya Nnaji, who is also in the class of 2022.
Despite residing in the Washington, D.C. area three of her five finalists are in the Pac-12. In addition to Arizona, she has Stanford and UCLA in her top five. If she picks Stanford, it will give the Cardinal the No. 1 and the No. 2 players in the class. Finalists closer to her home base are Connecticut and Duke.
Of the schools on her list, Rice has the most connections with Stanford. Her mother earned an MBA on the Farm and her aunt, former ambassador Susan Rice, attended the school, as well. Both of her parents attended Yale for their undergraduate degrees, making a high-academic school seem like a good fit. That has not stopped Barnes from pursuing her.
Rice also has an impressive family tree in the basketball world. Her father played college ball for Yale, and she’s the cousin of former New York Knicks guard Allan Houston.
Rice already has an impressive resume of her own. She has won two gold medals as part of USA Basketball. In her first two years of high school, the 5-foot-11 guard averaged 23.1 points, 10.1 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 2.4 steals per game.
In January 2020, Dan Olson wrote, “Skilled lead-guard with a scoring punch in the back court; poised game manager brings attack mode in transition game, plays under control and distributes; manufactures shots, finishes plays to the rim with consistency; executes in half-court game; continues as a coveted prospect in the class of 2022.”
She plays her high school basketball for Sidwell Friends School and her travel ball for the Fairfax Stars.
Loading comments...