Monmouth basketball coach King Rice suspended for CAA opener

Posted by author January 1, 2025 Basketball

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Monmouth head coach King Rice has been suspended for Thursday’s Coastal Athletic Association opener against Stony Brook.

The CAA handed Rice the one-game suspension for violating the conference’s sportsmanship policy in making derogatory post-game comments about a referee following Monmouth’s season-ending loss to Charleston on March 10, 2024 at the CAA Tournament in Washington, D.C.

League play gets underway Thursday with all 14 CAA teams in action. Tipoff at OceanFirst Bank Center in West Long Branch is at 7 p.m..

The suspension comes as Monmouth tries to turn the page after going 2-11 in non-conference play, the Hawks’ tough early schedule concluding with Monday’s 87-58 loss at No. 2 Auburn. Assistant coach Clive Bentick will take over for Rice against Stony Brook.

The referee Rice went after was Nathan Farrell, who works games in multiple leagues, including the the Big East, ACC and Atlantic 10. Rice picked up a technical foul with 6:43 remaining in the 83-59 loss to Charleston, the regular season champions who went on to win the tournament for the second straight season.

“When a guy comes in and it’s the first time I’ve seen him all year, he’s totally disrespectful, he told me I couldn’t talk to my staff, he tried to show me up all day. He’s a clown, and I don’t respect that at all,” Rice said in his postgame press conference.

“Haven’t had them all season, they come in with their fake muscles – and for two hours are in control of everybody’s lives. It’s not fair. He should stay in the ACC. I watch his games. He does not do that to anybody else. So I’ll take it today. I just hope he gets better, too. My team will get better. But you don’t come in the first time all season and be flexing on coaches.”

Farrell was part of the officiating crew at two Monmouth home games last season. He has not officiated any Monmouth games this season.

It’s the second straight season Rice has run into trouble at the CAA Tournament. He was ejected from Monmouth’s season-ending loss to Drexel in 2023, Monmouth’s first season in the league, which concluded a 7-26 campaign. In his 14^th season, Rice was suspended by the school for one game during the 2012-13 season for postgame comments about game officials, missing the Hawks’ game at Syracuse.

In that same post-game press conference last March, Rice revealed that Monmouth’s win a day earlier in an opening round game against Campbell had triggered a five-year contract extension, through the 2028-29 season. The university subsequently confirmed the extension, with athletic director Jennifer Sansevero indicating that metrics including “academic success, overall record, performance in the postseason, improvement over time” were part of the equation.

Rice opened his post-game press conference after Monmouth’s win over Fairfield in the home opener on Dec. 21 by apologizing to fans for playing the first 11 games on the road.