“Pure Joy.” Scott Rueck Talks Another NCAA Tournament For OSU Women’s Hoops On 750 The Game
750 The Game Staff
Scott Rueck and Oregon State have done it again.
Despite a mass offseason exodus that saw eight players leave for the transfer portal, Rueck and the Beavers rallied around one another, weathered the storms of the regular season and finished as the number-four seed entering the WCC Tournament in Las Vegas.
Three days and three victories later, OSU is dancing once again.
Rueck joined John Canzano (Afternoons 3-6 p.m. on 750 The Game) on Wednesday and talked about the feeling of watching his team punch another ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
“Pure joy,” Rueck opened. “Conference tournaments are so difficult. I think it’s the hardest thing we do all year. Three games in three days against teams that know you so well. So it turns into just a fight, it feels like you’re wrestling almost.”
A native Oregonian, Rueck was coaching the conference title game against a good friend and colleague in Michael Meek, head coach of University of Portland. Meek succeeded Rueck at Division 3 George Fox University when Rueck took the Oregon State job in 2010, and both have built sustained winners at their respective programs ever since.
Rueck said the familiarity added to the emotion of Tuesday’s victory.
“There’s just a lot, you know,” he said. “I was just taking this moment in. I’m so grateful to be a part of it. I wanted to believe it was possible, at points this year it was hard to believe it would be possible, but we just kept grinding, and here we are. Pure joy.”
In his fifteenth season at Oregon State, Rueck has the Beavs in the NCAA Tournament for the ninth time, not including the Covid-shortened 2019-20 season when the team was firmly ranked in the top-25 before the shutdown. But this appearance is different, after so many key players left for Power Four schools, including Raegan Beers (Oklahoma), Talia von Oelhoffen (USC), Timea Gardiner (UCLA), Donovyn Hunter (TCU), Lily Hansford (Iowa State), and Dominika Paurova (Kentucky), among others.
Canzano told Rueck he thought it was his best coaching job so far in Corvallis given the roster turnover and season-long growth.
“You just try to do your best all the time,” Rueck said. “Each circumstance is different. With the dramatic growth of this group I can see why people would say that, where we just finished from and where we were. But I think teaching is teaching, coaching is coaching. And with this group, they were so hungry to learn, that I think you could see the growth so clear, so evident.
“There are no egos in the locker room. There’s just none. It’s just, what are we doing next, and let’s have a great time doing it, how do we get a little bit better. They’re a group that just has perspective in life. They just got better literally every day.”
Sunday, the Beavers will learn their seeding and destination for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. ESPN bracketologist Charlie Creme currently has Oregon State projected as a No. 14 seed, in the Norman, Okla. regional where they would face a former teammate in Beers and a projected 3-seed Oklahoma Sooners.
For now, Rueck said he’s just fine with people continuing to doubt his program.
“We’re a pushover, you don’t need to scout us,” Rueck joked. “I like the makeup of our team. I’m excited. I feel as though, like I told you at the beginning of the year, we have the pieces when it comes together. We have the size at the rim, we’ve got point guard play, we’ve got wings who have size and athleticism, we can shoot it, and now the ball is going down for us, the ball is moving so much better. Once it comes together, I feel like we’re going to be pretty good, and here we are.
“Wherever we’re sent, obviously we’ll be an underdog, and we’ll have a big task ahead, probably somebody on their home floor. But you know me, John. Why not us? Let’s just go have fun doing our thing and seeing if we can keep the story going.”
For the full conversation with Coach Rueck with John Canzano, including his son Cole, a golfer at Boise State, carding an ‘albatross’ over the weekend, check out the podcast below.
Selection Sunday from Westwood One airs this Sunday, March 16th from 3 p.m. – 6 p.m. on Freedom 970-AM and 750 The Game.
John Canzano delivers the Bald Faced Truth afternoons 3-6 p.m. exclusively in Portland on 750 The Game.