You remember the Six Degrees of Separation Game, don’t you? Six Degrees of Separation is a trivia game based on the idea that everyone on earth can be connected using fewer than six associations.

Let’s play that game with the four remaining boys basketball teams for the Monroe County Region and former Whiteford Coach John Rice. Rice is now the head coach at Toledo Bowsher, which finished the season 4-15 in the Toledo City League:

WHITEFORD: This one is easy. Rice coached Whiteford for 30 seasons. He coached current Bobcat coach Brad Stevens during his four years on the varsity. He coached several relatives of current Bobcat leading scorer Josh DuPree and the three brothers of second-leading scorer Dave Gust. Stevens, incidentally, played on the first Bobcat team to win 20 games — the 1982-83 squad — that Rice coached. If Whiteford wins Friday against Madison (7 p.m. at Blissfield) it will give them 20 victories for the third time in school history.

FLAT ROCK: This one is almost as easy. Rice coached Flat Rock last season in a one-season effort when Ram coach Andy Mangin resigned shortly before the season started. The Rams went 4-17. Several current Rams — such as Jake Richardson, Adam Pavilanis, Mike Marcon, Andrew Scarton, Garret Matthews and Mike Boyce — all played for Rice last year. He did not coach Devon Crain as the senior moved into the district after the season started. Crain did hang around the team though for the second half of the season.

SMCC: Rice is the second-winningest coach in Region history behind SMCC coach Ray Lauwers. I had a conversation recently about coaching in the Toledo City League and Coach Rice told me that “Ray Lauwers is as good as or better than any basketball coach in the City League.” Back to the game: The biggest connection is Rice coached SMCC’s opponent, Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard, for two seasons after leaving Whiteford (2003-04 and 2004-05). He did not coach current Richard stars Eso Akunne or Josh Herbeck. He did coach Josh Herbeck’s brother, Mike, for two seasons. He also coached some brothers of a few other Richard players. The remaining connection is Irish captain and reserve Brian McNally. Coach Rice brought McNally up to the varsity during the 2004-05 season when he was a ninth-grader and he appeared in several games.

IDA: Rice never coached at Ida, but coached against Ida several games while at Whiteford. One of Ida’s biggest upsets ever was in the District finals of the 1982-83 season against the Bobcats (the same Bobcat team that Brad Stevens played on and went 20-2 that I mentioned above). That was Ida’s last District championship. Mark Hubbard was the coach of the 13-8 Ida squad that season. Hubbard is back on the sidelines this season as an assistant coach for Ida. Another connection: Rice was Whiteford’s JV girls basketball coach for two decades. The varsity coach at the time was Kris Hubbard — Mark’s wife.

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