MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Alex Ruoff said his personal wakeup call came during West Virginia’s fifth game of the season last year when he was asked to go in and help guard LSU’s powerful front court that featured 6-foot-9-inch, 289-pound monster “Big Baby” Davis. He realized then his body needed to change.
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| Forward Alex Ruoff appeared in 21 games last year as a freshman. All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo | |
“I knew that I had to get stronger,” Ruoff admitted.
So the 6-foot-6-inch, 210-pound sophomore forward spent this summer working hard in the weight room every day. Today, Ruoff is by no means Arnold Schwarzenegger but he’s also not Arnold from Different Strokes either.
“During camps there was a two or three-week period this summer when lifting was voluntary,” Ruoff said. “We had to make our way over and get our lifting in and some of us took advantage of that.”
The idea, according to Ruoff, was to increase his quickness and endurance.
“If I got bigger, Coach Beilein wanted me to make sure I had the same speed or be faster,” Ruoff said. “The main thing this summer was to get stronger without getting slower.”
Ruoff, who weighs about the same as he did last year, wasn’t the only one hitting the iron. Seniors Frank Young and Rob Summers, junior Darris Nichols and sophomore Joe Alexander each made a personal commitment to stronger. Although they didn’t sit around discussing their ideas of self-improvement, the need for them to get better is pretty obvious because no one is expecting anything from this year’s Mountaineer basketball team.
Athlon Magazine is a perfect example, recently coming out with its preseason predictions rating Wet Virginia 15th out of 16 teams in the Big East Conference. Of course only 12 make the Big East tournament.
“It’s a lot of motivation that everybody thinks we’re going to be down this year,” Ruoff said. “Nobody is even talking about us.”
So the WVU players are talking to themselves.
“It kind of gets you fired up and gets you ready to prove people wrong,” Ruoff admitted.
Ruoff likes what he’s seen so far from the team during the preseason, noting that the eight-player recruiting class Beilein and his coaching staff brought in this year presents an immediate upgrade in athleticism.
“I think last year’s team was so smart and they took care of the ball so much and the athletic ability that we lacked last year I think this year it’s going to be flipped,” he said. “Our weak areas last year are going to become our strong areas and our strong areas last year are going to be our weak areas this year.”
Ruoff, who saw action in 21 games last season as a freshman, said he spent the entire year simply trying to fit in. Because last year’s team was so experienced and in sync with each other, Ruoff’s major objective when he got into games was not to screw things up. That can be said for all of the underclassmen who played last year with the exception of starting forward Frank Young.
“I was just making sure I wasn’t doing anything stupid,” Ruoff said. “I know coach was taking a chance, thinking, all right I’ve got Alex in the game. I didn’t want the other team going on a 15-point run and coach being like, well, that’s what happens when Alex goes into the game.”
That meant shots Ruoff knew he could make he passed up to get others involved.
“The only thing I was worried about when I got into the game was the flow of the game,” he said. “If it went up that was great but if it stayed the same that is what I wanted. If it went down that was very bad whether it had anything to do with me or not.”
This year, Ruoff, Darris Nichols, Rob Summers and the rest of the returning backups have a different outlook because they know they are preparing themselves for an entirely different role this season. Even though they worked hard last year working for the few minutes they got, it’s entirely different now that the responsibility of maintaining a Top 25 basketball program falls directly on their shoulders.
“It makes everything more exciting,” Ruoff said. “Every little thing we’re doing right now is because you know you’re going to play this season. Last year, I got into that pattern of knowing I was only going to get those couple of minutes. This year I’m doing everything like ten times harder.”
That means a hundred shots a day and doing other little things to improve his game.
“I have to do at least something each day whether it’s ballhandling or something,” Ruoff said.
And even though he didn’t get a lot of minutes in some of West Virginia’s biggest games last year, Ruoff was right there paying attention in team meetings and learning from the bench. He believes those experiences were priceless.
“When I was done with the season and I went home my family reminded me that, you know, you played Oklahoma on national television and you went to the ‘Sweet 16.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I did; I was there,’” Ruoff said.
Ruoff says the objective now is to pass his experiences along to the eight freshmen -- the willingness to play defense, to work hard in the weight room to get stronger, and pay attention and learn John Beilein’s complicated system. Those are the recipes for success in the West Virginia program.
“I was a lot like they were last year,” he said. “The talent level is there with all of the freshmen but the defense – the help-side defense and the charges … in our pickup games the defense isn’t quite there yet like it was last year,” Ruoff said.
In 6-7 freshmen forwards Da’Sean Butler and Wellington Smith, West Virginia has two very gifted players. At the same time, it’s easy to see when you look at them in t-shirts that their bodies just aren’t quite Big East-ready yet. Ruoff says that will come with time.
“Wellington and Da’Sean bring so much talent,” Ruoff noted. “If they can get the little stuff that they need to pay attention to I think they will help us out a lot this year – even more than people think.”
Ruoff is also impressed with 6-foot-2-inch freshman point guard Joe Mazzulla.
“He brings maturity,” Ruoff said. “He doesn’t really play like a freshman.”
The things that have made John Beilein’s previous three teams successful – great shooting, unorthodox defenses, and an outstanding knowledge of the game – will still be in play this year. Ruoff believes the players’ basketball IQ is perhaps the biggest X-factor for the WVU program right now.
“It’s demanded of us so it kind of goes hand in hand with what we’re asked to do on the court,” Ruoff said.
Preseason practice for West Virginia begins on Friday, Oct. 13. West Virginia’s season opener is on Friday, Nov. 10, against Mount St. Mary’s at the WVU Coliseum.
Season tickets for the 2006-07 campaign are slated to go on sale next Monday. Contact the Mountaineer Ticket Office for more information.
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