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Until this year, he tried to duck media conferences after basketball games with teammate Carl Elliott, scurrying up the stairs to the exit at Smith Center. It was a maturity thing, he said while looking down at his cell phone Tuesday afternoon in the 22nd Street arena. Interview requests have been pouring in since high school, when he was called from class to talk to reporters about breaking Wilt Chamberlain's high school scoring record in Philadelphia. Rice is just starting to open up, he said.
Maureece Rice used to be a pure scorer. It was a God-given talent, he said. In college, he was forced to fall back into a passive role, dishing the ball off to teammates. He still scores an unostentatious 20 points most nights. To onlookers, it seems like he's had eight or 10.
By Foggy Bottom standards, Maureece Rice is as bland as they come. All the things that have come to popularize the GW men's basketball team - most notably the I-want-to-be-on-Top-10 dunks - don't consume Rice.
"I'm humble, man," he said. "Ask anyone who has known me for a long time. I'm humble and laid-back."
GW head coach Karl Hobbs said he saw something in Rice, a city kid who spent the first 18 years of his life confined to his neighborhood.
"His mother said to me, 'Maureece just needs someone to give him a chance,'" Hobbs recalled.
Now, he has a different kind of chance. The opportunity to become the third recent GW player in the NBA and continue to pursue a dream that many thought he would miss.
A player that was doubted for much of his teenage years, Rice spent the last six years in the spotlight. Some remember him as one that gives up too easily. Bishop McDuffie, the headmaster at Laurinburg Academy in North Carolina, remembers when Rice came to the prep school in 2004, hoping to catch on with their elite, 40-person team. He wasn't so successful.
"Some people are not willing to push hard enough," McDuffie said.
He left Carolina after three weeks. The year before that, he left an Adidas development camp after one day because he wasn't getting enough possessions, ESPN said.
Some remember him for Dec. 22, 2002. A sell-out crowd of more than 8,000, including Allen Iverson, saw Rice cross over LeBron James during a high school game, forcing the now-NBA titan to the hard floor of the Palestra in Philadelphia.
