Leon Rice enjoys consistent success with Boise State

Every home game was an event at Gonzaga, and for 11 seasons, Leon Rice had a front-row seat as an assistant coach.

That's 11 seasons of going to the NCAA Tournament, which included four trips to the Sweet 16 at a school that doesn't play football and where basketball is king.

So when the opportunity came for Rice to run his own program, he chose a football school, but to him Boise State had everything he wanted to establish a basketball winner.

"I was very fortunate to be involved in a great program and one that a lot of people wanted to emulate on the West Coast," Rice said. "A lot of people would fire their coach and say, 'We want to be the next Gonzaga.' It's one thing to talk it, but it's another thing to be committed to it and to have the resources, have the infrastructure, have the people who understand how to do it.

"That's what I saw here in Boise. The proof was in the pudding in the fact that they had that team in football. They were the Gonzaga of football. "

Rice has won and won big at Boise State, and with a 15-5 record (6-1 in the Mountain West), the Broncos are well on their way to a fifth 20-win season in his six years there.

He brings the Broncos to the Thomas & Mack Center, where they face UNLV (12-8, 3-4) at 8 p.m. today. CBS Sports Network will televise the game, and the Rebels are 4½-point favorites.

Rice's name has been among those mentioned in the speculation of who will be UNLV's next coach after Dave Rice was fired Jan. 10. Todd Simon has run the team on an interim basis since then, and the Rebels have gone 3-1.

Leon Rice didn't want to comment on UNLV's coaching situation, but there's a reason his name has been tossed around.

He is 117-68 at Boise State, and last season he was named the Mountain West Coach of the Year after guiding the Broncos to a 25-9 record and tie for first place in the conference standings at 14-4. Boise State also made the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons.

And Rice, 52, won from the beginning, going 22-13 in the 2010-11 season just one year after the Broncos finished 15-17 under coach Greg Graham.

"We were all fortunate when we took this job that Greg Graham left us some talented players," Rice said. "So we were able to hit the ground running a little bit that first year."

But Rice didn't know his first season at Boise State would be the school's last in the Western Athletic Conference before joining the more competitive Mountain West.

And when he showed up to coach his first game, an exhibition against UC-Colorado Springs, an announced crowd of 1,599 watched in the 12,500-seat Taco Bell Arena.

"You could've fired a cannon in there and not hurt anybody," Rice said. "I came out for warmups, and I looked around and there was nobody there. I have three boys, and they knew no other way than what we were doing under Gonzaga. They were looking at me like, 'Dad, what have you got us into?'

"I said, 'Well, think how great this is going to be when it's full.'"

Now Boise State basketball is a considerably hotter ticket, with an average crowd of 6,810 in 2013-14 representing its largest attendance in 13 years. The average this season is 6,091.

Those numbers also show the lengths Rice still has to go to make Boise State a truly must-see event. UNLV's home average this season is 11,738, and the Broncos continue to play in the shadow of their football team.

That football program, though, is what Rice uses to sell his basketball team. Last season's Mountain West Player of the Year, Derrick Marks, knew of Boise State while growing up in Chicago.

And his friends knew of Boise State.

"We were able to recruit him because he could wear his Boise State hat around school, and it was cool," Rice said. "It wasn't like, well, who the heck's Boise State?"

SIMON SAYS

UNLV's three keys to beating Boise State, according to Rebels interim coach Todd Simon:

1. Limit their 3-pointers (Boise State is third in the Mountain West with 8.4 made 3s per game.)

2. Rebound (UNLV was outrebounded 41-34 at UNR, a key reason for the loss.)

3. Make free throws (The Rebels were 14 of 28 in Reno.)

NOTABLE

Simon kept his word that the Rebels would put in some hard work after Saturday's 65-63 loss at UNR. They spent 1½ hours watching video Monday, then three more hours in practice, concluding with each player having to make 100 free throwns. ... Tonight is "Red Out." Fans are encouraged to wear red, and 5,000 T-shirts of that color will be distributed. The Rebels also will wear red. ... There will be a moment of silence before the game for Freddie "Machine Gun" Thompson, a former UNLV player and local high school coach who died in April from pancreatic cancer. His son, Mikey, plays for Boise State.

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow him on Twitter: @markanderson65