The world\u2019s tallest college basketball player is going coast to coast.<\/p>\n
Former Florida walk-on Olivier Rioux, a 7-foot-9 center from Canada and one of the most recognizable student-athletes in North America, announced Thursday he has signed with UC Irvine. The school in Southern California announced his arrival hours earlier.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOlivier is a high-character young man whose presence will elevate our team, our university, and our community,\u201d UC Irvine coach Russell Turner said in a statement. \u201cHe embodies the values that have defined our success at UC Irvine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve built a strong relationship with Olivier and his family over the years, dating back to his high school recruitment, and that familiarity gives us tremendous belief in who he is both on and off the court. Olivier\u2019s unique skill set and physical presence align perfectly with the tradition of dominant front court players in our program. We believe he will have an immediate impact and continue to grow within our system, and we are thrilled to have him join the Anteater family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rioux played sparingly in two years with the Gators, redshirting as a true freshman during the team\u2019s national championship season and then getting on the court in mop-up duty this past season. He played 15 total minutes, finishing with seven points, six rebounds and an assist.<\/p>\n
He set a Guinness World Record as the world\u2019s tallest teen before he stepped foot on campus. Now 20, he\u2019s looking for a chance to play more as a third-year sophomore.<\/p>\n
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Rioux became the tallest person to ever play college basketball when he made his debut in a 104-64 victory over North Florida last November. He scored three games later, making a free throw after getting fouled. He also recorded his first rebound.<\/p>\n
Rioux is 2 inches (5 centimeters) taller than former NBA giants Gheorghe Muresan and Manute Bol, and 3 inches taller than popular big men Yao Ming, Tacko Fall<\/a> and Shawn Bradley.<\/p>\n Florida<\/a> coach Todd Golden gave Rioux the option of playing sparingly as a true freshman or taking a redshirt season and working on his game. Rioux chose the latter. Nonetheless, he was a walking viral video, from riding his custom-made bike on campus, to ducking under every doorway, to cutting down nets while standing flat-footed during Florida\u2019s NCAA Tournament run.<\/p>\n Golden made it clear before last season that Rioux would only play late in blowouts, the result of having all four frontcourt players returning. But Rioux doubled down on wanting to be at Florida and welcomed the challenge of playing against Alex Condon<\/a>, Thomas Haugh<\/a>, Rueben Chinyelu<\/a> and Micah Handlogten<\/a> in practice and behind them in games.<\/p>\n Now he will try to get on the court more often in Southern California.<\/p>\n UC Irvine won the Big West regular-season title last season but lost in the conference tournament and ended up in the NIT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world\u2019s tallest college basketball player is going coast to coast. Former Florida walk-on Olivier Rioux, a 7-foot-9…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[83268,3516,7,217,420,950,15110,86949,231,772,1544,13953,5624,33867,2463,14792],"class_list":["post-722270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-2026-ncaa-tournament","tag-alex-condon","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-florida","tag-florida-gators","tag-micah-handlogten","tag-nathan-ray-seebeck-imagn","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-olivier-rioux","tag-rueben-chinyelu","tag-tacko-fall","tag-thomas-haugh","tag-uc-irvine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116495367802182398","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}