Oregon State announced the hiring of Scott Rueck as their new Head Coach today. Rueck comes from George Fox University, a Division 3 school in the Portland , Oregon area.
Rueck graduated and also has a Masters from Oregon State. He started as an assistant at George Fox under Sherri Murrell the former Washington State and current Portland State Coach. He has been the Head Coach at George Fox for the past 14 seasons, with a .766 winning percentage over that time. In those 14 seasons George Fox has won 7 league championships, gone to six D13Sweet Sixteen’s and three Elite Eights. He was the D 3 National Coach of the Year two seasons ago and has been the western D 3 Coach of the Year three straight seasons. Last season George Fox was 28-3 overall and 16-0 in league play.
Rueck is 40 and his wife played at George Fox, his sister also played at George Fox and his father was a High School coach.
What happens next? Well he has one assistant and I’d guess she may not be staying, so he can easily hire his own staff. Interestingly his wife Kerry was an Assistant with Rueck at George Fox, retiring several years ago. I would imagine he has been thinking about possible assistants for some time, and might be close to hiring 1-2 of the three possible soon. In my mind he needs someone with California coaching experience for recruiting purposes. Another assistant should have strong knowledge of the northwest high school and travel scene. The Coach at Southridge High School in Beaverton, JJ Hones’ high school, would be a possible choice.
Of course he really needs players, he starts with 6, so he needs to find 4-6 more who can contribute right away. Last season Oregon State went 2-16 in Pac 10 play and 9-4 playing a very weak non conference schedule. Since the schedule is probably pretty much set (hmm or ignored by the previous staff), I suspect the non conference part will be very weak. This will give time for all the players to get used to college play and get some experience.
Keep in mind that Oregon restarted their baseball team 2 years ago after being dormant for almost 20 years. In their second season, the Ducks had a very good baseball team. Of course they had 2 years to plan for their first season, but the blueprint is there for re-starting a program.
Two of last year’s 13 players return. Three graduated and eight transferred or will not play basketball at Oregon State. Now some could change their minds, and if they haven’t signed with other schools or started at another school, they might decide to participate in this fresh start. Seems a bit doubtful, as three of those eight announced their intentions just in the past week of not playing at Oregon State, but playing elsewhere.
Returning are 6-2 post El Sara Greer who started every game and averaged 4.4 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. She was 5th in scoring and 2nd in rebounds on the team. Also 5-7 guard Brittany Kennedy who averaged 2.7 points in 22 minutes per games is returning. Kennedy was 2nd on the team is assists and had the only positive assist to turnover ratio on the team.
Incoming recruits include guard Classye James from Mitty High School who was rated the # 20 player in Northern California, and not rated by HoopGurlz. Alyssa Martin is a 6-0 guard is who rated as the # 72 guard in the US by HoopGurlz. Both were signed during the Fall signing period. Wagner also signed 5-9 guard Alexis Bostick from Oakland’s Bishop O’Dowd High School in April. Bostick is not rated.
This week it was announced that JC player 5-11 Anna Marchbanks had signed with the Beavers. She was All State as a high school Sr in Oregon, but didn’t qualify academically for college. After two years at two different JCs she may be a contributor. She was at a good JC, a team mate signed with Washington State. Marchbanks averaged 20 points and 9 rebounds this past JC season.
A long way to go for the new Beavers. And this incoming frosh class is poor by Pac 10 standards. Still they are finally on the right path.
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