Robinson's Mike Rice Reaches 1,000 Points Milestone

Since the age of two, Robinson’s Mike Rice has had a basketball in his hands; he’s had the opportunity to master his shot all the way from the Fisher-Price stage to Spalding. In Wednesday’s 90-68 road loss against Herndon, Rice’s work helped him achieve a new milestone – reaching 1,000 career points in his high school career.

“It’s been lot of hard work put in the past three years,” Rice said.  “[I’ve put in] a lot of hard work in the offseason getting my body stronger, working on my jump shot; just improving my game."

After scoring 35 points in a junior varsity game his sophomore season, Rice was immediately brought up to the varsity level and has been a dominant player for Robinson ever since.

“He plays to the best of his ability with the maximum amount of effort every night,” Robinson coach Brian Nelson said. “You don’t score 1,000 points by accident. It’s a testament to the consistency that he’s had over three years.”

Knowing that Rice needed only nine points to reach 1,000 points entering the game, the Herndon game officials stopped the game to commemorate the occasion with 6:43 left in the second quarter to award Rice the ball that he scored with to reach the distinguished 1,000 level.

Rice has been through a lot on the floor without complaint. Last year, Robinson only won two games. This year they’re sitting at 10-6.

Ask any opposing coach in the Northern Region and the first thing they’ll mention is how they couldn’t stop Rice or how they had to game plan for him.

“We know about how Rice plays,” Herndon coach Chris Whelan said. “He’s smart. He’s crafty.”

His childhood habit of having a rim in just about every room in his house paid off; he knows how to use just about every portion of the rim and backboard to make a layup. Some basketball players are touted as 15 and ten players, meaning they’re expected to score 15 points and grab ten-or-so rebounds. If you could formulate a statistical merit for Rice, he would be labeled a 25 and 15 player.

“He’s not going to wow people,” Nelson said. “He just finds a way to get it done. He finds little cracks in the defense; finishes through traffic and is generally a good free-throw shooter. He’s a great offensive rebounder especially for his size. Every night he finds a way. That’s going to be the hallmark of his career.”

Through 16 games this season, Rice has scored over 20 points in 13 of them and has been in double-digits in all but one game, where he scored a season-low nine points against Chantilly. His season high was 39 in a win last week against Oakton.

Rice is among the top five scorers in the entire D.C. metro region and is the leading scorer at the AAA Northern Region level in Virginia. One would think his name would appear all over Internet scouting bureaus like websites such as Rivals or Scout.com. It isn’t. The primary schools looking at Rice are all at the non-scholarship Division III level, including names such as Marymount and Roanoke College, his current top selection since his sister recently graduated from there.

“Frankly more people should be giving him the look just because the way he gets things done,” Nelson said.

Part of the reason that he’s being overlooked in recruitment is that he plays as a 6-foot-2 post player, where guys even at 6-foot-5 are labeled “tweeners”.  Since Robinson’s team lacks height, Rice is the Rams’ lone option against opposing big men. In most cases, Rice ends up out performing whoever he’s matched up against and he has a knack for drawing and-one fouls against the defense, or just fouls in general. He’s shot more than 130 fouls shots this season because of his stingy aggressiveness in the post.

With the basketball that his son scored his 1,000^th career point in one hand and a video camera in the other to remember the moment, Rice’s father, Jeff was proud to see his son accomplishing his goal.

 “I’m glad he finally did it and got it behind him,” Jeff said of his son reaching 1,000 career points. “He’s got one more goal and that’s to get to regionals.” 

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