Washington Huskies Coach Mike Hopkins Brings in Dave Rice as Assistant
By Ben Renner
Washington Huskies coach Mike Hopkins named former UNLV head coach Dave Rice as an assistant, joining Cameron Dollar and Will Conroy.
New Washington Huskies head coach Mike Hopkins easily managed to bring Cameron Dollar back in from the cold of coaching a bad Seattle University team to help him turn his program around. Now’s he’s added another former head coach to his staff in Dave Rice.
Hopkins called Rice “a proven winner,” adding:
"He has extensive coaching experience, not only as an assistant but as a head coach as well, and will be a huge asset to our program."
Washington Huskies fans are already familiar with Hopkins’ other members of his staff in Dollar and Conroy. Dollar was an assistant to Lorenzo Romar for years until he bolted Montlake for First Hill to coach the Seattle University Redhawks. Conroy of course was also a Romar assistant and past administration holdover. He also helped the Huskies to some of their most successful seasons under Romar as a player.
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Rice was most recently an assistant coach at the University of Nevada. He helped the Wolf Pack win 28 games, the second-most in school history. He coached the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels twice in four seasons there. Rice left UNLV as the third-winningest coach in school history. During his tenure there, Rice’s teams won 10 games over top-25-ranked teams.
Despite the mass exodus of talent from the upcoming recruiting classes for the Washington Huskies–including the Porters–and Romar reportedly close to joining Pac-12 rival Arizona’s coaching staff, Washington appears to be ready to rebuild and create an entirely new system of basketball.
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Hopkins received the blessings of East Coast college hoops godfathers Mike Krzyzewski and Jim Boheim–who hired Hopkins as an assistant. With familiar faces Dollar and Conroy, Rice could be a new-hire who pays off for the the Dawgs in the future.