Back at Boise State, Max Rice has coaching goals, but will go ‘wherever’ needed
Just one month ago, Max Rice was sitting on the beach in Perth, Australia, enjoying the life of a professional basketball player. He’d just finished up his first season with the East Perth Eagles and his second campaign as a professional.
At 26 years old, he still had a ton of future in front of him in basketball, and a beautiful part of the world at his feet.
But as it goes, there’s no place like home. And that’s what was going through Rice’s mind in early May.
“What are we gonna do when the season’s over?” Rice recalled asking his wife, Taylor, as the pair sat on the edge of Australia’s southwest coast, looking out at the Indian Ocean. “I’m gonna have six months again, and it’s just a long offseason.”
The pair talked about a couple of options, and landed on coaching as a possible next step for Rice. Despite having just graduated from Boise State in 2024 — and leaving as the men’s basketball program’s winningest-ever player — Rice was already considering retiring as a player after not seeing much change in his game.
With that idea in mind, he began reaching out to programs in the Pacific Northwest to explore potential opportunities. Then, just a week later, Boise State assistant coach Lexus Williams left the program to take a job at Minnesota.
So there was an opening at Rice’s alma mater. Where his father is the head coach.
“When (Max) reached out to me and said he’d be interested, I was really excited,” Boise State coach Leon Rice told the media Monday. “Because you look at what he did here, it was always about winning, he knows what it takes, he sacrificed for the team, he cares about the program, and that’s what you get when you get former players.”
Broncos fans are well accustomed to having one Coach Rice on the bench, but now there will be a second. Just one month after that conversation on the beach with his wife, Max was announced as the program’s newest coach on June 3 and is back in Boise, where he is already being referred to as “Coach Rice.”
“When I first got here, it was a bit of nostalgia coming back. As a player, it just brought up all those memories I had from playing here for six years,” said Max, who was at Boise State from 2019 to 2024 and helped lead the Broncos to a Mountain West regular season and tournament title in 2021-22, as well as make three straight NCAA Tournament appearances.
Unsurprisingly, whispers and accusations of nepotism surround Max’s appointment, with Leon Rice having led the program as head coach since 2010, and the father-son connection is undeniably part of why Max returned to Boise State.
However, Leon said that the reason for Max’s return goes far beyond that, and that he knew Max would be a good coach years before he’d even graduated from Boise State.
The younger Rice also already knows exactly what he’s bringing to the table as summer workouts officially begin this week.
Max said he’ll primarily focus on player development this summer, and highlighted guard Julian Bowie and forward Pearson Carmichael as players he wants to help make a big jump heading into their junior years.
He said he’s also spent a lot of time around new transfer guard Ty Rodgers, who’s joining the program from Illinois. Max Rice described Rodgers as a “unique player” who’s going to be “very special” for the program.
“I really want to try to instill that fast-paced kind of style this coming year with the pieces we have,” Max said. “Player development and just wherever they need me is kind of what I’m planning on.”
While not an immediate goal, Max said he also can see a future use for himself in recruiting. He’s already received a bunch of messages on social media from high school coaches and players, but has been unable to respond to any of them due to NCAA compliance and recruiting rules.
“Getting out there on the road, I think, is also important, just because I feel like people somewhat know who I am in the Northwest, just from a little bit of my playing career,” Max said. “... I’m not rushing into anything, but wherever Leon wants me to be, I’ll be there.”
