He led Michigan to the 1989 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, scoring an NCAA-record 184 points in tournament play, a record that still stands.

[1][2] Rice was also voted the tournament's Most Outstanding Player and was part of the Associated Press All-America second-team, after averaging 25.6 points for the season, while shooting 58% from the floor and 52% from three-point range.

Joining other young players such as Sherman Douglas and Rony Seikaly, Rice would be called upon to deliver some of the scoring load despite being a rookie.

Later during the season in a nationally televised game against Shaquille O'Neal and the Orlando Magic he scored a career-high 56 points on 20 of 27 shots from the floor including 7 three-pointers.

The Hornets had acquired veteran players Vlade Divac and Anthony Mason and no longer featured Johnson, and also hiring a new head coach and NBA legend Dave Cowens.

The 1998–99 season would start late and last only 50 games per team due to a league lockout, and on March 10, 1999, the Hornets traded Rice to the Los Angeles Lakers.

[11] Coach Cowens had resigned, Anthony Mason was out for the year, Rice was coming back from an elbow injury that he needed to have surgery on, and the owner was in legal trouble.

Before the 1999–2000 season, the Lakers hired head coach Phil Jackson, who had won 6 NBA Championships with the Chicago Bulls teams that featured Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

The Lakers also acquired veterans such as Ron Harper, A.C. Green, as well as Rice's former Miami teammates John Salley and Brian Shaw.

The Lakers defeated the Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns, and Portland Trail Blazers in the first three rounds of the playoffs en route to advancing to the 2000 NBA Finals to play the Indiana Pacers.

In the second game of the Finals, Bryant suffered an ankle injury, and Rice scored 21 points to help the Lakers take a 2–0 lead in the series.

[17] His tenure with the Knicks lasted only one year, as he was hobbled by a foot injury (plantar fasciitis) and was unable to find a niche in New York behind Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell.

[18] After the season in which the Knicks lost in five games to the Toronto Raptors in the first round of the 2001 Playoffs, he would eventually be traded to the Houston Rockets for Shandon Anderson.

In Houston, Rice joined a young team featuring Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley and was initially excited about returning to a starting role after being relegated to more of a third-option with both the Lakers and Knicks.

A knee injury (partially torn tendon) ultimately derailed and eventually brought Rice's career to an end.

Charges were later dropped by the victim J.C.[22] On April 28, 2016, Rice married his longtime girlfriend and youngest daughter's mother, Tia Santoro, at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami.