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Gonzaga Basketball

Former Gonzaga assistants Leon Rice and Tommy Lloyd land USA Basketball coaching positions

Arizona first-year head coach Tommy Lloyd cuts down the net after the Wildcats defeated UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament title game in March. (Associated Press)
Arizona first-year head coach Tommy Lloyd cuts down the net after the Wildcats defeated UCLA in the Pac-12 Tournament title game in March. (Associated Press)
By Jim Meehan jimm@spokesman.com(509) 459-5585

Former longtime Gonzaga assistants Leon Rice and Tommy Lloyd are part of the coaching staff for USA Basketball’s team that will compete in the FIBA U18 Americas Championship this summer.

Rice, who has led Boise State to nine 20-win seasons and seven postseason appearances in 12 years as head coach, will serve as an assistant on head coach Tad Boyle’s staff. Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton Jr. also will assist Boyle, the head coach at Colorado.

“It’s an incredible honor,” Rice said in a BSU release. “I’m looking forward to coaching alongside two of the best coaches in college basketball and mentoring some of the rising stars in our game. It will be an amazing experience, and I am humbled by the opportunity.”

Lloyd, who guided Arizona to Pac-12 regular-season and tournament titles in his first season as head coach, will help during the U.S. team’s training camp in Houston as one of three court coaches. He’s joined by Colgate’s Matt Langel and SMU’s Rob Lanier.

Lloyd’s Wildcats finished 33-4 after falling to Houston 72-60 in the Sweet 16. The 33 wins ranked third in program history and second for the most wins by a first-year Division I head coach.

Lanier landed the SMU job after leading Georgia State to the NCAA Tournament last March. Top-seeded Gonzaga eliminated 16th-seeded Georgia State 93-72 in the opening round.

Rice and Lloyd will make their USA Basketball debuts.

Boise State won Mountain West regular-season and tournament championships before falling to ninth-seeded Memphis in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. If BSU had won, Rice would have faced former boss Mark Few and Gonzaga. BSU finished 27-8.

The Zags edged Memphis 82-78 in the second round.

The U.S. has won nine of 11 FIBA U18 Americas’ championships since the event’s inception in 1990.