Put yourself in Logan Routt’s shoes.
(OK, they’re size 15, but hang with me on this …)
A senior and the oldest player on the 14th-ranked West Virginia University basketball team, Routt figures his quotient of playing time is based upon the misery of his teammates. No, seriously.
The 6-11, 250-pound banger from Cameron surmises that any extended playing time this year is tethered to the foul troubles or physical ailments of stars Derek Culver, Oscar Tshiebwe and Gabe Osabuohien.
Fallback guy? Plan B? Considering where he’s come from and what he’s accomplished, let’s call Logan Routt the rebound guy.
“Usually when I’m not getting a lot of minutes it means my teammates are playing really well, so I can’t really get frustrated with that,” Routt said. “I never really get down on myself. I would say it kinda motivates me to work even harder in practice, and outside of practice.”
So, Routt, to his eternal credit, is OK with this. The Mountaineers are 15-3 after blitzing Texas 97-59 in Morgantown on Monday, and the big guy from the little town is making his own stamp on this dangerous team with spurts of contributions at opportune times.
In the Texas game, for instance, Routt played 14 minutes as Coach Bob Huggins was able to substitute freely for his big men, keeping everybody fresh as the defense went wild on the lethargic Longhorns. Routt finished with nine points and five rebounds, including four on the offensive boards. He subbed out one time at 10:32 in the second half to a rousing, warm reception from the appreciative crowd.
WVU fans know a floorburn-loving hardass when they see one.
“When I’m in, I want to be the hardest player out there, be the most physical player out there,” he said. “And rebound every single ball that comes my way.”
Yep, he’s the rebound guy.
And so it goes. Funny thing, the tallest guy on the 14th-ranked team in the nation didn’t even think of himself as a basketball player until moving from Panama City, Fla. to Cameron, W.Va. midway through his eighth-grade year. That’s right. Routt was a beach-boy, baseball bum year-round and didn’t want to mess up his mojo with other sports until moving to the colder climes, when the weather and the neighbors dictated other options.
As a hard-throwing pitcher — he was schooled by his father/coach Lance Routt and figures he was throwing close to 90 mph as a junior — he was a natural to try out at quarterback. And he started at QB for three years at Cameron, even after his body grew to 6-foot-11. The biggest QB in the land – on any level — got an infamous blurb in USA Today.
“When I first got here (at WVU) and was a freshman on campus more people knew me from ‘the tall quarterback from Cameron’ than they did the new basketball player on the team,” he remembered with a chuckle.
It was kinda the same thing back in high school. Basketball was his third choice, and he was pushed there by his newest best friends, twins Cole and Ryan Clutter, who were, coincidentally, the sons of head basketball coach Chad Clutter. “I was a 6-4 eighth-grader and they were like, ‘You should come to practice today and see what’s going on.’ That’s pretty much how that started.”
The rest, as they say, is history. He was first-team all-state as a senior, and, truth be told, he’s become the most accomplished big man from the Ohio Valley in the last 25 years, and probably the most accomplished athlete from Cameron — high school and college careers considered — in the last 50. Not bad work from the rebound guy.
The second chapter of this comes courtesy of Bob Huggins, who took in this walk-on from the cow-patty town with no stop lights and molded him into a viable big man in the Big 12.
“It took a couple of months of practice to realize what he expects out of his players and what type of energy you have to bring every day to satisfy him and get playing time,” Routt said. “He gets the most out of me. He gets the most out of everyone. There’s no way I’d be the player I am today without him.”
Huggs owes him one, too. Routt was a walk-on out of high school, red-shirted his first year, and played 11 games his second year. He earned a scholarship and played 31 games as a soph. His career was progressing nicely.
The next year WVU needed an extra scholarship — there is a finite number available for schools this side of Kansas — and the coach went to Routt for a huge favor.
“I still had in-state financial aid, so I could basically go for free” without the scholarship, Routt said. “He asked me (to give it up) so that he could recruit another player, which ended up being, I think, Emmitt (Matthews) or Jermaine (Haley). One of the two. So, it would really help the team. I was a little down because I wanted to stay on scholarship, obviously.”
But, as always, he took one for the team. Full disclosure: Routt did briefly consider a transfer elsewhere. But, hey, he holds a Bob Huggins IOU and things could be worse. He’s the rebound guy on a nationally-renown team that could go deep into the post-season, and, after wrapping up his MBA in Morgantown, he’s seriously considering a pro basketball career overseas.
Those shoes fit pretty well on Logan Routt right now.
