The third Sunday of March often was a special day for Rice High School alumni, fans and supporters.
It was the day of the Catholic League city championships, and the powerhouse Raiders had a habit of getting there, dotting Fordham’s gym with its patented green and gold.
It will be special this year, too, but for a different reason. There is no Rice anymore — hasn’t been since the Harlem school closed its doors in 2011 because of financial woes and plummeting enrollment — but the famed boys’ basketball program remains relevant this time of year.
On Selection Sunday, five players from Rice will carry on its legacy, and will find out where their respective teams will be going for the NCAA Tournament.
“It speaks to what we had going on at a little school in Harlem,” said Dayton sophomore point guard Scoochie Smith, who had to finish high school elsewhere when Rice closed. “It was a great tradition. There are schools that don’t have even close [to that amount], even the best schools in the country.”
Two proud alums — forwards Emmy Andujar of Manhattan and Jermaine Sanders of Cincinnati — will be part of college basketball’s biggest party, and three other former Rice players — Andujar’s teammate Tyler Wilson, VCU sharpshooter Melvin Johnson and Smith — will join them.
Success is nothing new for the troika. They all have played in the NCAA Tournament before. Smith has gone the furthest, reaching the Elite Eight as a freshman last year.
Andujar emerged this year as Manhattan’s best player — the team leader in points, rebounds and assists — and ignited the Jaspers to a surprising upset of Iona in the MAAC final.
“They’re still keeping the name alive,” said Dwayne Mitchell, the last head coach at Rice who has moved over to Scanlan High School in The Bronx. “Rice pride is still there.”
Johnson said, “I take a lot of pride in knowing when I play, that’s where I came from.”
Smith, Wilson and Johnson were forced to find new schools when Rice closed, all going their separate ways — Smith to Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut, Johnson to St. Benedict’s Academy in Newark, and Wilson to Cardinal Hayes in The Bronx — and Andujar was a senior on the final team, which lost in the city championship game. Sanders graduated a year earlier.
They remain close, as most Rice players do, connected through social media and working out together in the summer.
There is a brotherhood among them — a phrase often repeated if you ask anyone with ties to Rice what made their time there so special — a lasting bond although the school no longer exists.
Odds are long any of the Rice teammates will face each other in the tournament, though it isn’t impossible.
“That would be amazing, playing on a big stage against each other,” Andujar said. “It’s a little more than basketball. We’re brothers.”
Rice was a national powerhouse, a team many identified as a typical New York City team: tough, hard-nosed and guard-oriented. The Raiders pressured the ball like few teams would, and never let up.
Coaching was its bedrock. Moe Hicks won six city championship in just 16 years — still the most of any Catholic coach in the city — after taking over for another expert tactician, Lou DeMello.
The Harlem school churned out one Division I prospect after another — players like Felipe Lopez, Andre Barrett, Kemba Walker and Dean Meminger.
Then there were the guys who couldn’t hack it there and became scholarship players elsewhere. The two best players from the 1994 PSAL championship team, Martin Luther King Jr., were former Rice kids.
“There are some great coaches and great talent in New York City right now, but the Rice brand is definitely missed,” said Rasheen Davis, a Manhattan assistant coach who spent two years on Hicks’ staff and attended Rice.
There were strict rules at the all-boys school — no cursing, a dress code that demanded a shirt, tie and slacks. Discipline was of the utmost importance.
“For me personally, I really learned how to be a man,” Davis said. “Things to this day I still value.”
There was talk in recent years about raising enough money to bring the school back, talk that has since faded. If there is hope of Rice ever re-opening, it’s faint. Andujar has driven past his old stomping grounds a few times.
“It’s sad,” he said. “That school really helped a lot of people, saved a lot of kids.”
It isn’t forgotten, and for those with ties to Rice, memories will be rekindled with the return of March Madness. The Harlem powerhouse doors remain closed, but the connections haven’t been extinguished.
“It’s a good tradition to carry on, and I’m proud to be a part of it,” Smith said.