Locals hoopin’ it up in college
Korbin Farmer
Monmouth College senior basketball player Jacob Rueter is honored during senior night on Feb. 15 with his parents,
Dennis and Cindy.
They would make a good college starting squad collectively, but five former high school basketball standouts from this area have been hooping it up on different courts throughout Illinois this winter.
The local college basketball hoopsters are Columbia’s Korbin Farmer and Cole Khoury, Gibault’s Jacob Rueter and Trevor Davis and Dupo’s Kelvin Swims.
Farmer, a 6-foot-7 senior, just finished his career at Millikin University in Decatur. Millikin competes in the NCAA Division III’s College Conference of Illinois and Missouri.
Farmer averaged 5.6 points and 4.5 rebounds per game in 22 games (19 starts) this season at Millikin, which ended the season at 4-21. He also had 20 blocks.
Khoury, a 6-foot-9 freshman, is playing at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, which also competes in the NCAA Division III’s CCIW conference.
Khoury, who led Columbia in scoring last season as a senior at 12.4 points per game, has only played in two games thus far for IWU, which is 17-8 on the season.
Rueter and Davis are both playing at Monmouth College, which is located just west of Galesburg.
Rueter, a 6-foot-1 senior at Monmouth, is averaging 3.2 points per game and leads the team in assists with 49 in 23 games played this season (five starts).
Monmouth competes in NCAA Division III’s Midwest Conference and is 14-11 on the season.
Davis, Rueter’s former teammate at Gibault, is playing at Monmouth for his junior season after playing basketball at Southwestern Illinois College the past two years.
The 6-foot-4 junior is averaging 4.8 points and 3.4 rebounds per game in 24 games played (four starts) with the Fighting Scots.
Rueter’s parents – legendary longtime Gibault hoops coach Dennis Rueter and his wife Cindy – were on hand for Jacob’s final home game on Feb.15. He scored two points in the 70-56 loss to Ripon.
Swims, who led Dupo with 22.3 points and 3.35 steals per game as a senior last season, is playing for Division II junior college Parkland College in Champaign.
The 6-foot-1 freshman guard has played in 19 games (no starts) at Parkland and is averaging 4.3 points per game.
Parkland is 19-6 on the season and is currently ranked 20th in the nation.
