The 2023-2024 men’s basketball team had a good season this year, making history this year by winning the Arrowhead Conference this year being the first team to do so in program history.
Surprisingly enough, there was only one sophomore on the entire team and that would be forward Wes Ruppert.
Ruppert is a 6’4” forward from La Salle and graduated from LaSalle-Peru High School. He just finished his second year of playing basketball at IVCC playing a total of 24 games at the college.
Ruppert is proud to be part of a team that won IVCC’s first conference title.
“To be a part of a team that made IVCC history feels amazing,” he said. “Even if my role was more behind the scenes and not as much during the game… Everyone played a part that contributed to us being conference champs.”
Although Wes may not have played that many games on the court, he still accomplished a lot in the classroom, earning IVCC Academic Honors in every semester, NJCAA 2nd Team Academic Honors, and Arrowhead Conference Academic All-Conference while managing being a player on the basketball team.
Ruppert will take away many memories from his IVCC career.
“My favorite moment from my IVCC basketball career is probably when I got announced at sophomore night.” he said. “It was nice and my teammates were very supportive.”
As the only sophomore on the team, Ruppert provided leadership as the entire team transitioned into working together.
Ruppert said, “At the start it was weird. It was almost like being a freshman again; I didn’t know anybody on the team. But as time went on, I got more and more familiar with my teammates and it went away.”
As one of two people from the local area on the team, Ruppert enjoyed his experience.
“Honestly it was very cool to see everyone with such different backgrounds come together to form a team,” he said.
“For both years I played at IV, we had players from all over, including other countries. It was very interesting learning about everyone and the cultures they brought with them.”
Ruppert said the transition from high school to college ball helps to make players better.
“The biggest difference going from high school to college was that everybody could shoot and was at least solid with the ball,” he said. “Not everyone was like that in high school. At the same time though, all the other freshmen at the time were simply advancing to the next level like I was. So while people could shoot and play better defense, I also got better in those areas alongside my peers.”
As for what lies ahead for Ruppert in his future plans, he said that after IVCC he plans to join a union to be an electrician and wants to specifically become a lineman as his future career.