King Rice was tough enough to make Bobby Hurley cry.

When the emotional former Tar Heel apologized to his Monmouth team for criticizing the officials Wednesday night, it reminded me of King Rice, the player, who helped lead the 1991 Heels to the Final Four. Rice was not highly recruited out of Binghamton, New York, and he might not have played very much if Dean Smith had signed Kenny Anderson or Bobby Hurley in 1990.

But Rice loved the challenge of facing Hurley in his first trip to the Smith Center and the Carolina-Duke rivalry. Rice was a junior starter and Hurley a red-faced freshman getting his first taste of the best rivalry in college basketball. On the way to a 79-60 Tar Heel victory, Rice had 13 points and 9 assists while forcing Hurley into missing 7 of his 9 shots and a bunch of turnovers. Hurley left the game in tears after experiencing big boy basketball for the first time.

In his fifth and final game against Hurley, Rice held the by-now Duke star scoreless from the field while tallying 12 points and 7 assists in the 1991 ACC championship blowout of the Blue Devils, making all-tourney with senior mates Rick Fox and Pete Chilcutt.

Perhaps Rice’s most famous game was his sophomore season when the Tar Heels stunned the undefeated and top-ranked Blue Devils in Durham without injured All-ACC guard Jeff Lebo. Rice started his first game and played 34 minutes, the most of any Tar Heel that night, scoring 12 points and dishing out 7 assists in the 91-71 beat down in which Carolina out-rebounded Duke 43-27.

By dribble-penetrating Duke’s pressure defense, Rice wrote the blueprint on how to play against the Blue Devils, and Smith’s teams used that strategy to win 12 out of 18 games against Duke in the 1990s, including 7 of the last 8 before Smith retired after the 1997 season. Rice will always be remembered for his fierce battles with Hurley and other point guards around the ACC.

The rough-hewn kid from the streets of western, New York, has grown into a good young coach and class act. He says he owes it all to Carolina, but the Tar Heels owe King Rice something, too.

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