Patience, a poet once wrote, “is a companion of wisdom.”

I’ve grown to appreciate Scott Rueck’s wisdom since our paths first crossed more than a decade ago.

It has taken me until this year to understand his patience.

In late January, the Oregon State women’s basketball team was 3-5 and had lost more games to COVID-19 than it had played. Having lost three top players from the previous season to graduation (Mikayla Pivec), transfer (Destiny Slocum) and injury (Kennedy Brown) and dealing with an almost entirely new lineup, it would have been easy for a coach to write this off as a building year and starting thinking about next season.