Indiana HS Basketball Tourney running thread...

Them's fightin' words!

I'll meet you at high noon on Teal Way, Bob Cook!

 

Because I'm from Carmel, I'll send one of my servants.

 

Because I once lived in Lawrence Township, I will recruit Hessians to fight for me.

 

Because I'm from Southwestern Indiana, I'll only make it to Indianapolis for the fight every 2 or 3 seasons.

 

I live in Bloomington, so I am perfectly suited to be the pacifist who tries to break up the fight between Bob and Bubbler, but I really don't want to get blood on my new Birkenstocks.

 

OTR and PDB, because of where you're from, you'll have a showdown on whether an extended I-69 is an economic necessity or a tree-killer.

 

wow...lot of action since I last checked the board on Saturday night.

A few clarifications and additions to discussion.

1. Blackmon did play in the Bill Green Athletic Arena. It opened in the 70s...maybe even before those two state titles. It was initially called the Marion Athletic Arena, but renamed after Green during one of his sabbaticals away from Marion.

2. Crimsonace, mostly solid job of recapping my own post from the school nickname thread. But it wasn't argyle socks that had been promised, rather full band uniforms if the school nickname made reference to his Scottish ancestry. Band uniforms never came, nor did a marching band for that matter. And as a 10-year-old, I was always deeply upset when opposing schools had our nickname spelled "Argyles" and all the sock jocks were made. Deeper background, the school corporation even tried to let students at Fairmount/Summitville pick the name. But, and I don't recall the exact name, they came up with something like Chadahowick Valley Braves...or something really silly. This was right after Maconaquah had opened with a similar nickname, so administrators said forget it and settled on the geographically descriptive Madison-Grant (school is located in Grant County, less than a mile from Madison County and draws students from both).

3. Heritage Christian's best girls player (yep, the one headed to play for Geno) is from Plainfield. Someone do the geography on how far that is from Binford Blvd. More background, her parents didn't want her driving to and from each day, especially when weather got bad, so they even bought the girl her own place a couple of blocks from the school. She's been more or less living alone for the better part of her career.

4. Also used to live in Lawrence...guess that puts me on Bubbler's side of the showdown.

5. I've heard wildly ranging opinions on Hulls. I'm intrigued to finally see him for myself on Saturday. We have teams in our coverage area that have played South, but I've never been on those assignments. I'm holding onto my Mr. Basketball vote until after the weekend. Though, it's a pretty weak class to begin with, so I have been leaning Hulls' way based on hearsay for most of the year.

 

She also played for Plainfield all summer prior to her frosh year, and then enrolled at Heritage. With her, they might have challenged national champ BD for the title this year (they were 21-2 without her ... but the two losses were a 51-point blowout to BD and a 2-point loss at home to a team BD later beat by 32, so maybe not ...).

HC also had a starter who was the daughter of a (fanatical evangelical) state representative from Marion, a good 75-minute drive from 75th & Binford, a few years ago. She drove past at least 3 evangelical schools to go to HC.

 

You're mentioning Grant County often.

P. Eric's son played at Marion Lakeview Christian, probably not 500 yards from the Turner household. But, Lakeview's girls programs just weren't good enough I suppose.

 

If you can navigate IN-57 to IN-54 to IN-445 to IN-45 to IN-37 to Indy in the first place, that is ... . (or alternatively, IN-57 to US-50 to see the Jug Rock and make about 1,000 tight 90-degree turns with no guardrail and a 50' dropoff, then to IN-37 where you can pray at the altar of Damon Bailey).

Just happens to be in the conversation, but my mom grew up in Marion, although growing up in Indy, I've never had any allegiance to the purple & gold (whatever fond feelings I might have had for Marion went out the window when the yokel color guy sitting next to me at the 2000 finals started yammering about getting his own championship ring). Lakeview must not have good enough programs for Turner ... nor Anderson Liberty Christian one county over ... much like Covenant Christian (which is about 20 miles closer to Plainfield than Heritage) must not have been good enough for Faris.

 

Like I was saying, none of these tiny Christian schools would have ever bothered with the IHSAA without the introduction of class hoops. I bet the small schools that lobbied (for more than 30 years) for class basketball didn't imagine they would get usurped by charter and private schools who would start picking off their best players.

 

Schadenfreude ... it washes over me when I think of that.