Nebraska guard Eli Rice enters NCAA transfer portal

Nebraska guard Eli Rice has entered the NCAA transfer portal, On3 has learned. Rice spent only one season with the Cornhuskers, after signing for the class of 2023.

He was ranked as a three-star prospect and the No. 270 overall player in the country in the class of 2023, according to the On3 Industry rankings.

Eli Rice appeared in 17 games this past season for Nebraska, averaging 4.2 points per game. He helped the Cornhuskers reach the NCAA Tournament and earn a No. 8 seed, before they lost to Texas A&M.

Prior to coming to Nebraska, Rice spent a season at IMG Academy. Cornhuskers coach Fred Hoiberg was high on Rice when he signed.

“Eli is a guard with good positional size and length and the versatility to play several positions in our system,” Fred Hoiberg said in a statement. “He is a good scorer who can make plays for others and rebounds well for his position. Eli has a lot of potential for development, as he played just two years of high school basketball and is young for graduating class. I think his best basketball days are ahead of him.”

If his best days are indeed ahead of him, Rice will now be playing them somewhere other than Nebraska.

Nebraska guard Ramel Lloyd Jr. enters Transfer Portal

Eli Rice wasn’t the only Nebraska guard to enter the transfer portal on Monday. Ramel Lloyd Jr. is also leaving the program.

Ramel Lloyd Jr. came to Nebraska as a three-star recruit in the Class of 2022, according to the On3 Industry Ranking. He was the 135th-ranked player nationally and played his high school basketball at Sierra Canyon in California.

That team at Sierra Canyon was incredibly talented with two McDonald’s All-Americans and five players who went on to play Division I basketball. Lloyd averaged 11.6 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game in 27 games during his senior season at Sierra Canyon.

At 6-foot-6 and 210 lbs, Lloyd brings excellent size to the guard position and was even seen as a forward by many coming out of high school. 

As a freshman for the 2022-23 season, Lloyd used his redshirt and worked on the scout team for Nebraska. He was also on the Tom Osborn Citizen Team in 2023. He was hoping to make an impact for the Cornhuskers in 2023-24, playing well during the team’s trip to Spain. However, injuries derailed his season and kept him off the court.

It was a good season for Nebraska as a whole, going 23-11 and making the NCAA Tournament for the first time since Fred Hoiberg took over the program in 2019. However, the Cornhuskers were knocked out by Texas A&M in their first tournament game.