Destiny Rice

It’s no secret that defense has been the defining focus for UL’s women’s basketball team in the decade that Garry Brodhead has led that program.

The Ragin’ Cajuns are allowing opponents only 57.0 points per game – the top mark in the Sun Belt Conference – and only 54.6 points per conference outing. They’re forcing 21 turnovers a game from their opposition, again the league’s best mark.

Credit for that certainly goes to good overall team defense, and the amount of time and effort that Brodhead puts his squad through to achieve goals like limiting teams to single-digit points in a quarter. But there’s one individual that he credits more than anything else for that defensive success, and surprisingly it’s not a player who’s a dominant inside presence or even one who’s cat-quick on the perimeter.

It’s his point guard, junior Destiny Rice, whom Brodhead says makes that all possible.

“She’s going to completely control the tempo of the game,” Brodhead said of the Shreveport product who transferred back to her home state from Alabama two years ago. “A lot of people don’t realize what she does for us.

“We’re so defensive oriented that we want to control the tempo, lessen the number of possessions in the game and the tempo of the game so we don’t have as many possessions to really guard. She’s the key to that. She’s the answer.”

It’s true that the statistics don’t mean a lot when it comes to Rice. She averaged 9.2 points and 2.5 assists last year, and both of those numbers are down this year since she’s limited with a nagging leg injury. Brodhead substitutes for her constantly during games, and she’s only on the floor between 20 and 22 minutes of each 40-minute game in compiling 6.6 scoring and 2.2 assist numbers.

“I feel like I’m here to do whatever my role is and be the best version of myself in doing it,” Rice said, “whether it’s scoring points, setting my teammates up to score, taking time off the block, whatever it is I’m here to do it.”

It’s a big change from the style of the former All-State selection from North Caddo’s powerful program, where she was a national Top 100 ESPN recruit and two-time state MVP. While in the prep ranks, she once hit 10 three-pointers in a game and had one memorable 57-point outing.

This year, she has yet to take more than nine shots in any of the Cajuns’ 20 games, and seven times she’s taken three or fewer shots.

“Hey, I’m comfortable,” she said. “Whatever it takes.”

That doesn’t mean she can’t score when called upon. In UL’s recent trip to Texas State, she took control in the second half and helped UL outscore the Bobcats 47-28 after halftime in a 71-51 victory. She was fouled eight times – six of them in the fourth quarter – and hit 12-of-12 free throws, all in the final 20 minutes. For good measure, she tossed in a three-point basket at the final horn for the final points.

“I was just trying to be more aggressive, attacking the basket,” Rice said after her 4-of-5 shooting, five-rebound and three-assist effort. “I took what they gave me.”

That performance brought a smile to UL associate head coach Deacon Jones, who coordinates the Cajun offense.

“Coach Deacon is always on her about that, being more aggressive,” Brodhead said. “He makes sure she’s as aggressive as we want her to be on the offensive side, but there are teams that we don’t want to get into high-scoring games with.”

The poster child for wide-open offense in the Sun Belt is multi-time league champion Troy, which made it all the more surprising when UL beat the Trojans 92-83 in last year’s only meeting. Rice hit 10-of-12 free throws in that game on the way to 17 points, and showed that playing with tempo doesn’t necessarily playing a slowdown game.

Troy got a measure of revenge two weeks ago, holding on for an 85-78 overtime win in Alabama, but it was Rice again who stepped forward in the closing five minutes and helped UL rally from an eight-point deficit.

“I never thought we could beat Troy by scoring 90 points,” Brodhead said, “but because of what she did and the way she did it, we were able to do that. She does a lot of things that we haven’t seen in our program probably since Kim Perrot was here.”

Rice went to Alabama after her storied prep career at North Caddo after being recruited for years by Louisiana native, former Crimson Tide assistant and current ULM head coach Brooks Donald Williams. She played sparingly in her true freshman year after tearing her MCL in North Caddo’s state championship game as a senior, but began to see regular action in the rugged SEC as a sophomore.

“I felt like I was sent there for a reason,” Rice said. “I felt like it would be another place that I could call home. I didn’t play a lot that first year but I was working every day to get stronger and faster. It’s such a different pace in college so I was just working on me.”

The COVID pandemic abbreviated that freshman season, but Rice came back and played in 25 games for the Crimson Tide in 2020-21, helping lead that team to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. She had four double-digit scoring games, and played 16 minutes against Maryland in the NCAA tourney.

“I thought I was affecting the game,” she said. “I tried to soak everything in, but I just didn’t feel as comfortable as I feel like I should when I was playing. I talked to my pastor and my family about transferring.”

UL was one of the teams that contacted her through the transfer portal.

“Everything that I felt like I was looking for, I felt like they had it here,” she said. “A lot of people say that when you go on visits and when you talk to coaches, it’s a show. I felt like with the coaches here, it’s definitely not a show. They love you far more than just basketball … in all aspects, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. It’s just a good place to be.”

The Cajuns are also in a good place, having won six of their last seven games – with only the overtime loss at Troy marring that streak – heading into February, and are coming off a road sweep of Georgia Southern and App State which moved the squad within one game of first place in the Sun Belt standings. The recent streak came after some up-and-down showings early in the season.

“We still have a bulk of the core people that played last year,” Rice said, “but we were still learning each other. We had new people come in and I feel like we had to find our way with each other and become a team with chemistry, and learn how to trust each other. The past few games that’s what we’ve been doing.”