Monmouth coach King Rice expects star guard to transfer: ‘We’re cool with it, alright. But leave him alone right now’

Monmouth coach King Rice knows the deal.
He understands that in today’s day and age of the Transfer Portal and NIL money, any basketball player who stars at the low- or mid-major level will be courted by high-majors — and showered with money — as soon as the season ends. If not before.
Just two years ago, Rice saw forward Myles Foster leave Monmouth after three seasons for Illinois State. He’s now at Clemson.
And Rice expects that his current star — sophomore guard Abdi Bashir Jr. — will exit the program for a bigger one after the season ends.
“His phone’s going to go crazy again, just like it did after Rutgers,” Rice said after the 6-foot-7 sophomore guard lit up Seton Hall for 28 points and made 6-of-9 from deep as Monmouth got its first win of the season, 63-51, at Prudential Center. “Please leave them alone. We know what’s coming at the end of the year. Everybody get in line. It’s cool.”
He added: “We’re cool with it, alright. But leave him alone right now so he can be the kid that he’s supposed to be. So he can be the guy that can take care of his family after this. Okay, don’t call him now and tell him he should be [somewhere else] tomorrow and all this stuff. Let these kids be kids, okay?
“And then he’ll get to be somewhere, and it’s going to be cool, and I’m going to be cheering for him, okay, but this new world is different. It’s hard. It’s hard every day.”
Rice has said his team has five buy games this year that bring the school an estimated $435,000, which he’s hoping to use towards NIL next season. He said some schools will schedule buy games just to get access to players like Bashir.
“They’ll promise you a buy game right now for how he’s playing,” he said. “I’ll bet you 10 people [are] probably on my phone right now talking about buy games for me next year. I don’t want them, all right, I need some home games from my boss, from my fans, all right.”
Bashir, who is of Somali heritage, has now combined to score 66 points against Rutgers and Seton Hall, having dropped 38 on Rutgers in a loss earlier this month.
He entered the Seton Hall game averaging 19.5 points per game while shooting 39% from deep.
Asked his thoughts on his coach’s comments about a potential transfer by NJ Advance Media, Bashir said:
“We talk about that, but you know, it’s just, he believes in me. I say this all the time, he believes in me more than I believe in myself. When I first got here, I told him that I wanted to change my family’s lives, and he pushes me to that standard every single day. So, you know, obviously it’s good that he has that confidence in me, but I don’t want to put no time limit on my time whatever, you know, because nobody else, is gonna have me like he got me. He’s probably the best coach I ever had.”
Bashir said he’s trying to represent all of Somalia with his play.
“It’s not no Somali Division 1 basketball players,” he said. “You know, there’s only one. There’s a young guy at Arizona State, and my twin brother [Abdul, who is averaging 19.4 points per game at Casper State junior college] and all of us were just trying to represent, I’m trying to represent the whole country. So I wear that on my sleeve every day.”
Rice said he promised Bashir’s mother, who immigrated to the U.S. from Somalia, that her son would go to mosque every week.
“So I make sure he goes to mosque every Friday,” Rice said. “And now that’s given him the strength to be him. All right, when you’re that kid and you’re away from home and somebody’s telling you got to go to mosque, but everybody else don’t have to go, but in your family, you’re supposed to do that. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Rice said Bashir could have left after last season when he averaged just 6.3 points per game, but stayed out of loyalty even though the NIL money at Monmouth doesn’t amount to much.
“I know he could have left this year and he stayed for hardly no money,” Rice said. “Okay? He ain’t got no check from me yet. All right, not one. None of them have not one dude on my team. They know what’s coming. Hopefully before Christmas, I got a little half of what they supposed to get.
“Okay, that’s the reality of everybody. Think it’s big money and all this stuff. These kids stay for very little bit of money because they trusted me and my staff, and they know we’re gonna get them right for their future, whenever that comes, if it’s next year, the year after, whenever it comes, they’ll be better for it, because they spent this time with us.”
Rice, whose team has played nine road games to start the season because it needs the money from buy games, said Seton Hall has individual players who make more NIL money than his entire team — even though Seton Hall is perceived to be among the lower division of the BIg East in terms of NIL.
Rice said his son Xander Rice was offered big NIL money to transfer before last season but stayed at Monmouth. He’s now playing professionally in Greece. Rice said players like Bashir have to learn how to save and grow their NIL money.
“I’m just learning about money myself,” Rice said. “Hopefully he don’t spend all his money on Chick-fil-A. All right, hopefully that little bit of money I gave him, he putting some of it away or sending it home so his mom could put it away for him, because it’s not a lot, and then when he gets to the big check, I hope someone’s there to teach him how to do it.”
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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.