For decades now, the knock on coaching the Rice men’s basketball program is that it’s too hard to win.
The school’s high academic standards, which don’t bend much for athletics, have made recruiting hard. But the Owls’ first-year coach, Rob Lanier, views the Ivy League academic standards and what a degree from Rice can mean to a student-athlete’s life as positive.
“I think we are unique because one of our strengths has to be having a level of continuity,” Lanier said recently to the Defender. “I think by and large, the kids who choose Rice want to be at Rice and want to get an education from Rice as a starting point. So if you can find enough guys who warrant being here academically, who love the game and you get them back for two or three years, you’ve got a chance to be different. I think our situation is unique in that way.”
The way Lanier sees it, Rice’s academic reputation and post-graduation success make it less likely that his players will opt to enter the transfer portal, even if it’s for a lucrative name, image, and likeness (NIL) deal. That will allow him more continuity than his contemporaries in the American Athletic Conference.
“I don’t want to have a program that’s built on one-year relationships. I want to be in a situation where having guys come in and get better is a part of our strength, the developmental aspect of a program.
I love it. He’s a competitor and he wants to win so he is going to expect us to do the things to win. But at the same time, we all want to win. So he is not asking us to do anything that we are not capable of doing.
Trae Broadnax on playing for Rob Lanier
“So I saw Rice as a place that young people would choose primarily based on the academic reputation,” said Lanier. “If you are being treated well, being developed and you are experiencing winning while getting a Rice diploma, you are less inclined to leave at the first sign of turbulence or at the first sign of a check.
“For me, I prefer the challenges associated with Rice versus the challenges that the landscape has presented to us as of late.”
That made his decision to take the Rice job an easy one last spring, a couple of days after Lanier had been unexpectedly fired after two seasons at SMU. He seemed to turn a major corner with the Mustangs after guiding the program to a 10-win improvement and landing a spot in the NIT Tournament.
I grew up in the projects with very little, so getting a free education and being able to play the game that I love that mattered to me. All of that has changed. So which places represent the best opportunity to do as closely as possible to that old school way that I came up in the profession? This represented that to me and the academics drive that.
Rob Lanier on why he took the Rice job
It wasn’t enough for the SMU administrators who were gearing up for a move from AAC to the Power 4’s ACC.
Lanier wasn’t on the market long before Rice athletic director Tommy McClelland reached out. Ironically, his wife, Dr. Dayo Lanier, asked her husband if he would consider Rice shortly after the run ended at SMU.
“That Tuesday I was doing a press conference here,” Lanier said.
He hasn’t looked back since.
Lanier and his staff came in and immediately went to work on turning over the Owls basketball roster with 10 new players, including South Carolina Upstate standout Trae Broadnax, Wyoming’s Caden Powell, Central Connecticut State’s Kellen Amos, and a pair of SMU transfers in Emory Lanier (his son) and Denver Anglin. They also re-recruited a few players from the previous Rice staff, like Alem Huseinovic and Andrew Akuchie.
With a new voice on the sidelines, the Owls jumped off to an impressive 7-3 record and a 2-0 ACC record. They are now caught in a five-game losing streak, but their 11 wins already match their win total from a season ago.
However this season plays out, it’s all a part of Lanier’s goal of returning the Owls to the NCAA for the first time since 1970. The former University of Texas assistant coach did it at Siena and Georgia State before arriving at SMU.
“Everyone is still positive, every is still high-spirited,” Akuchie said. “Even though we are in a bit of a losing streak, everyone is excited to be here, everyone is excited for the next game. So it’s still going well.”
"If you don't have a great reputation, you've already made it almost impossible (to become a D1 head coach)"
— Rising Coaches (@RisingCoaches) January 25, 2025
Rice Men's Basketball head coach Rob Lanier talks about the obstacles and how hard it is to become a Division I basketball head coach.
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That positivity comes from Lanier’s encouraging and teaching approach to coaching.
