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Mitch Rueter of Batesville was the MVP of the All-star game. 20 points on 8 of 10 shooting. The future is looking brighter all of the time!

Awesome! Were any other future bears in the All-Star game?

Don't know a great deal about him, but Rand apparently is pretty high on him.

Burly Bear

Heck that is wonderful news AND the fact it is an in-state high school kid instead of a transfer out of stater is even better to build a foundation on. I trust Rand picking players!

Rand is a good coach and definatly knows how to pic his guys!

The Sports Info dept. just issued an official release about the signing of Reuter. I didn't want to paste it all here, but they haven't added it to their site just yet so here it is:


UCA SIGNS BATESVILLE'S RUETER

CONWAY, Ark. _ The University of Central Arkansas Bears have signed Batesville's Mitch Rueter to an NCAA Letter of Intent to play basketball, according to UCA head coach Rand Chappell.

Rueter, a 6-foot-6, 200-pound forward from Batesville, was named the Most Valuable Player at the recent Arkansas High School All-Star Game played in Fayetteville. Rueter scored 20 points to help the East to an easy 90-69 victory over the West.

"We're very excited that Mitch has decided to attend UCA," said Chappell. "We're excited to be getting a player of his caliber in here as a freshman. We think he'll have a great four years as a UCA Bear."

Rueter is an All-State player who averaged more than 20 points a game for the Pioneers.

"He is a very versatile player," Chappell said. "He is a good shooter from the perimeter and can also go inside and score. And he can be a solid factor on the boards as well. He's just an all-around, athletic basketball player."

Rueter's older brother, Matt, played for Division I Southwest Missouri State and is now playing in Australia.

"We were impressed with both Mitch and his family during the recruiting process," Chappell said. "He comes from a good family and it shows. We're very pleased to have him at UCA."

I havn't seen him play, but sounds like a good prospect.

Will Rand redshirt him or will he contribute next year ? What do you guys think ?


Burly Bear

I would suspect with 92 percent of the assists, 87 percent of the scoring, 84 percent of the minutes and 79 percent of the rebounding gone from last year's team, there won't be a lot of redshirting going on.

But, Rand does like to bring in a whole lot of guys and let the cream rise and the rest sit around for a year. Plus he doesn't like playing freshmen much, but I would think Rueter has the talent and also you probably want him to have a year of college game experience before moving up to D-I. I would guess he plays, but of course I could be wrong.

I can't recall, but I don't think that Rand played many freshmen when he was at Henderson.

The only one that I can remember playing regularly was Tarvorsis Uzigway (SP).

Burly Bear