Rillie involved in the game

Former Gonzaga standout John Rillie has played basketball since he was a youngster. After playing professionally for 16 seasons, mostly in his native Australia, Rillie is back in the States, helping ex-Zag assistant Leon Rice at Boise State.

Here’s my Then and Now feature on Rillie that ran in today’s S-R.

The story was a fairly long one, so I’ve added a couple of notes below.

First of all, I’d never met or talked to Rillie before calling him on Sunday afternoon. He immediately goes into the Top 10 of best interviews with his storytelling, laced with equal parts humor and candidness.

I tried to work these items into the story, but ended up trimming them. I know that Rice has instituted several of GU’s traditions at Boise State. One is the half-court shooting contests between coaches and players after game-day shootarounds.

Rillie, as you might expect, is quite comfortable shooting from half court.

“Saturday ended a six-game streak for me and the coaches,” he said. “Guess it was a tough week all around (for BSU, which lost to Utah State and Nevada.)”

Rillie relayed another story regarding GU traditions.

“The one thing Leon hasn’t done yet, Fitz had this thing if we weren’t shooting well he’d turn around to his wife Darlene, she’d sit about five rows behind the bench, and tell her, ‘Babbo, I can’t make them for them.’ I’m just waiting for Leon to turn around to his wife and say the same thing.”