Rueter caps 43rd season as Gibault coach with state crown. Will he be back for a 44th?

Twenty-four years have passed since the Gibault Hawks boys basketball team had a chance to compete for and win a state championship.

The Hawks were up 11 with 3:06 to go in the 1999 IHSA Class A state title game, but a 13-0 run capped by a buzzer-beating three-ball denied Gibault the school’s first state championship.

On Saturday afternoon at State Farm Center in Champaign on the campus of the University of Illinois, the Hawks got big-time redemption.

Thanks in part to a superb performance from standout senior guard Kaden Augustine, the Hawks defeated Scales Mound 65-45 as Augustine led the way with 24 points, going 3-for-4 from beyond the arc while drilling 9-of-10 free throws.

Getting a state title in his 43rd year of coaching was satisfying for Hawks coach Dennis Rueter after the disappointment of 1999 — but not vindication. Rueter was happier for his current players and noted his 1999 team was also happy with the championship win.

“The kids that played in 1999 communicated with me, obviously, but it’s about the kids, and if we wouldn’t have won the state championship, I wouldn’t have felt like my career was incomplete,” Rueter said. “I feel like we’ve done a lot of good things down here and have certainly enjoyed it, and I don’t look at it as vindication, and maybe the basketball gods kind of stepped up and helped us out a little bit. But ... it’s about these kids, not the kids from 1999.”

Indeed, the basketball gods perhaps did. To wit, Gibault trailed Illini Bluffs 44-42 in the closing seconds of the Jacksonville Super-Sectional, but Kameron Hanvey drilled a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the team to Champaign.

Augustine was glad to help Rueter and Gibault Catholic bring home the first state title in program history while setting the school record for victories.

“It’s awesome (to be able to win it for him),” Augustine said. “The last four years I’ve been here he’s brought it every day, and he puts a lot into it, and as I said, if we didn’t win it for him, we won it for us, and obviously, I’m very proud of our guys.”

Bringing home the first boys basketball state championship to Gibault left Augustine and the Hawks with a major sense of pride as the team finished the season 32-7.

“It’s awesome because my freshman year, we won eight or nine games, and we weren’t very good, and we flipped it around, so it’s totally amazing,” said Augustine. “It’s so awesome.”

What does the future hold?

There had been speculation Rueter may retire as the Hawks coach after this season, but he noted a decision or announcement would not come in the near future.

“My wife and I will evaluate it at the end of the year and see how it goes. I’ve enjoyed coaching and still enjoy coaching, so I’m worn out, so now wouldn’t be a good time to make that decision, Rueter said. “I’m pretty worn out.”

Rueter finished the 2022-23 season with 797 career victories, all at Gibault.

This story was originally published March 11, 2023 at 2:38 PM.