Christina Lee

Mateo “Teo” Rice ’25 didn’t spend his childhood or high school years fixated on pursuing a collegiate basketball career. Nor was he  recruited onto Yale’s Men’s Basketball team upon graduating high school, instead playing a gap-year season of prep ball and then walking on to the Yale team. Nevertheless, Rice was elected by his teammates to serve as captain of the 2024-2025 squad.  

“A captain plays a big role in shaping the team’s culture and how we work together,” guard Jeannot Basima ‘27 wrote to the News. “We choose our captain because we trust them to keep us accountable and bring us together, making sure we play Yale’s style of basketball—rebound, defend, and share the ball. Teo [does] just that.”

While coaches have no role in the selection of a captain, they work closely with the team’s eventual pick. A captain, therefore, requires more than mere court experience. He should be selfless, a leader and an example for his teammates, according to Yale head coach James Jones. 

“Teo really cares about the team. Every player has [their] individual drive, but Teo shows them how hard they have to work to be successful. He’s always asking [me] what he can do, how he can help, and he works to keep them all together,” Jones told the News.

Despite playing a limited role on the court—averaging just 2.5 points per game—Rice has steered Yale to one of its best campaigns in program history. Under his leadership, the Bulldogs went 13–1 in Ivy League play this season, tying the program record for conference wins.

Rice says his main priorities are to build relationships with teammates; gain their trust and confidence both on and off the court; and create a healthy, winning atmosphere. 

“It was a huge honour [to be named captain], because, you know, we had one captain for every sports team. We had [also] just come off our best season, probably in program history,” Rice told the News in a phone interview. “So though I felt like somebody who hadn’t contributed much on the court last year, being put in position to lead coming into my senior year, I felt a lot of responsibility and excitement. [But I] also felt comfortable because I have four guys in my class, four other brothers with me, and I knew I’d do just as well as I could.”

Rice, who grew up playing a plethora of sports with his sister, including basketball, tennis, soccer and swimming, didn’t begin to focus on basketball until the middle of high school. Although both his parents had sporting careers at Yale — his mother played tennis, and his father played basketball — he said he didn’t feel any immense pressure to follow suit.

“I [had] moved to a new school in the tenth grade, and it happened to have a better basketball team than my [last],” said Rice. “So I played, starting my sophomore year, and I was a good player, but I wasn’t great. [But] in my senior year I took a huge step. I got more confident in shooting, I was scoring twenty plus a game, and became a legitimate enough college level individual player.”

His improvement coincided with the outbreak of the pandemic, leading him to defer his enrollment at Yale—where he had been accepted through early action and planned to join the men’s basketball team as a walk-on.

Rice subsequently played a postgraduate season at his preparatory school, and played in COVID circuits with his club team.

“I was playing with these guys who were ranked, and I realised, you know, I can do this,” Rice said. 

When he eventually arrived at Yale, Rice said that the basketball team immediately became a group he connected with. On the court, he faced competition that pushed him to improve. Off it, he found upperclassmen who guided him through life at Yale and close friendships with the five other members of his class.

“Teo shows up every day with a positive attitude and is consistently one of the hardest workers on the court,” Jack Molloy ‘25 wrote to the News. “His positivity and confidence in our team is unwavering, and we rally around his energy. Our winning culture begins with him, and he is absolutely a guy that leads by example.”

Beyond the basketball court, Rice is a psychology major and pursuing a Spanish certificate. After graduating this spring, he will begin a career in consulting at Deloitte in New York City. He hopes to play in a men’s league going forward — “nothing too serious” in his own words — and is inspired by his father, whose leadership style he seeks to embody, and whose path as a member of Yale’s Men’s Basketball Team mirrors his own.

Reflecting his peers’ sentiments about his leadership, Rice’s last comments for the News focused little on himself. 

“We have a chance to win back-to-back games at March Madness, which has never happened before. We’ve never even [attended] back-to-back before. I have a lot of pride in the class of 2025,” shared Rice.

Thursday’s game against Texas A&M will tip off at 7:25 p.m. ET.