EPHRAIM, Utah—Snow College head men's basketball coach Rob Nielson has announced that Mason Rich, a 2013 graduate of Bonneville High School in Ogden, Utah, has verbally committed to play for the Badgers. Rich will be leaving in July for a two-year mission for his church to Peru, and has committed to join the Badgers in the fall of 2015.
     "I'm stoked," said Rich, "Going on a mission and then coming back to play for Snow feels right. I like the coaches at Snow and think it will be a really good fit."
     In his senior season at Bonneville, Rich averaged a lofty 14.2 points and 9.5 rebounds per game. "Mason is a very athletic young man," said his high school coach Jason Finder. Coach Finder says the 6'6" Rich "is a physical specimen who loves to lift weights and plays above the rim."
     The Bonneville forward was named to the Ogden All-Area first team this year as well as Second Team in Region 5 and Honorable Mention All-State in the Deseret News. According to Coach Finder, Rich carried a 3.8 GPA throughout high school and says, "He not only plays hard all the time, he is a very good student off the court."
      "Mason is the kind of student-athlete we look for at Snow, with a well-proven work ethic both on the court and in the classroom," Nielson said. "I hope he has a couple very satisfying years in Peru, and we are excited to have him join us for the 2015 season."
     Snow College, the oldest two-year college west of the Mississippi, was founded in 1888 and plays basketball in the highly respected Scenic West Athletic Conference (SWAC). Snow, with a second campus in Richfield, Utah, has a total enrollment of 4,500 students. This past season Snow's men's basketball team finished with an overall record of 22-10, finishing third in the SWAC, and was ranked as high as No. 20 nationally in the NJCAA poll.