Indiana HS Basketball Tourney running thread...

Charter schools hadn't been invented yet (save BSU's lab school Muncie Burris, which is usually nationally ranked in volleyball and has never lost a match in the 2A tournament), but I can probably pull out some columns I force-fed into campus paper during that time (to a readership that probably didn't give a crap) predicting exactly that, at least for the privates.

I vaguely remember the Indy Star's Bill Benner saying "that sound you hear is the sound of private schools enlarging their trophy cases" shortly after the vote was made to split the tourney into classes.

 

By Saturday, I'll have driven IN-37 four times in eight days. I am considering taking up residence in one of the abandoned houses in Martinsville.

 

It sounds like you've driven it enough to know who Ruel W. Steele is. For fun, you can always cut over to SR135 for the scenic route through Brown and Johnson counties. Fewer cops, too.

 

Or you could take old 37 and check out Stepp Cemetery.

http://www.prairieghosts.com/stepp.html

 

I might consider it. I always cut over to IN-67 if I am headed to the airport or anything near the Speedway in Indy.

 

I'll be there on Saturday. We've got two teams (Snider, Luers) going for state titles. Anyone think Snider's got a shot at B-South? And it seems Luers is one its way to back-to-back 2A titles, no?

 

Oh, and just for reference, all: It's Deshaun Thomas. No capital S (insert Superman joke here). I've covered the kid's entire HS career. Questions? I've probably got answers.

 

The flip side is, you'd have to live in Martinsville.

To quote one of my old college buddies "you have the most perfect location in Indiana -- 25 minutes from Indy, 20 minutes from Bloomington. Why did they have to put *Martinsville* there?"

 

Just to recap, JCD, Luers, Princeton and Bloomington South were Saturday's big winners. I went three for four, only missing JCD.

Here are a few thoughts from each game yesterday...overall a pretty good, not great, day at Conseco, which included four Big Ten coaches in attendance.

Class A: Jac-Cen-Del 66, Triton 55
Score indicates the game was way closer than it really was. Neither team played well at all in the first half, but JCD picked it up in the third quarter and pushed the lead to about 20 heading into the fourth. Triton got it down to nine (or maybe even seven) in the final minute or so. It's been about six years since we've had an interesting game in the opener at Conseco.

Class 2A:Ft. Wayne Bishop Luers 67, Brownstown Central 49
Brownstown kept the game close into the third quarter, actually having a 27-26 lead early in the quarter. But, a couple open 3-pointers and Deshaun Thomas getting himself to the block saw Luers explode to about a 20-point lead. Thomas takes some questionable shots, mostly quick 3-pointers off his crossover, but when the game is really on the line, he gets to the basket. He ended up with 34 points, 15 rebounds and three blocked shots.

Class 3A: Princeton 81, Rochester 79 (2 overtimes)
Easily the game of the day. Princeton completes the perfect season, but not until a 40-point effort from Bruce Grimm, Jr., who is headed to Middle Tennessee State. Grimm hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer of regulation to send the game to overtime. But ultimately, Princeton was able to use its size to pound the ball inside against Rochester's front line that was mainly made up of 6-1 white guys. It was a great, great game.

Class 4A: Bloomington South 69, Ft. Wayne Snider 62
Back-and-forth game with some strange calls and physical play down the stretch. Snider had three shots at making a 3-pointer to tie the game with about 45 seconds left, but missed all three of those shots short. Indiana recruit, and likely Mr. Basketball, Jordan Hulls ended up with 14 points and two assists...not a great performance. On this night, he was overshadowed by teammate Darwin Davis, Jr. (a solid looking sophomore), who had 17 points and went 7-of-7 from the foul line. He also had the game clinching steal in the closing seconds.

 

Hulls was double-teamed most of the night, which is why he only took one shot inside the 3-point line. Certainly not his best night, but there was a reason for it.
I love the crosstown rivalries. Davis and Jake Mulinix (who came off the bench and made a big basket and a pair of free throws in the final two minutes) both started their high school careers at Bloomington North. Mulinix quit over issues with the coach and sat out his junior season, but Davis' family moved (lots of family stuff going on which forced a quick move) into the South district.
Right now, Bloomington North people (yes, they exist) are up in arms and wanting to contest the title.
It all makes me want to laugh, to avoid crying.

 

I was there, too. Thomas does take some questionable threes, but that kid showed up on the big stage and let everyone in the state know just how good he is. It was funny in the postgame listening to the media outside of Fort Wayne ogle over this kid and asking him questions about his game, his titles, Damon Bailey's scoring record, etc. Just another day at the office for the kid and I sort of chuckled because I've seen it all season.

Snider and B-South could've gone either way. Everyone thought B-South would just have to show up and it'd get the title. Snider, I think, showed everyone in the state just how damn fine of a team it was. The kid that missed those three straight threes shoots at a 45 percent clip for the season and is not a streaky shooter. He'll put up six a game and hit three and he's clutch.

Who were the four Big Ten coaches? I saw Crean and I'd guess Matta and maybe Izzo, but who else? Painter?

 

Bloomington's school board is also notorious for re-drawing the lines (if you're a South fan, you claim the liberal-controlled board keeps re-drawing the lines for "PC" reasons of keeping the racial balance "correct" ... if you're a North fan, you claim they're re-drawn to make sure all the good athletes go to South). I do know of one person who lives south of Bloomington South, but had his house redistricted into the North district ... so he has an apartment in the South district so his kids can go there. It's nuts.

In Bloomington, South has the reputation of being the townie school, while North has the reputation of being the school where all the IU professors' kids go. North also has a rep for being more diverse (when in reality, North & South's minority populations are about equal, although North tends to have more international students). People complain and argue about that kind of stuff all the time down there. It's funny.