Notebook: Junior All-Star Teams Released
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With the conclusion of the high school season right around the corner, the IBCA has announced their Indiana Junior All-Stars. This group is made up of 24 players in the 2020 class, Juniors, who are put on either the “Core”…
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Continue ReadingWith the conclusion of the high school season right around the corner, the IBCA has announced their Indiana Junior All-Stars. This group is made up of 24 players in the 2020 class, Juniors, who are put on either the “Core” team or a Regional team listed as Red, White, or Blue.
While this is an exercise in futility, getting it right is still the goal and with the addition of many more players from year’s past, we do have a better chance to get it “right.” In this year, this might be the best job the committee has done to get the right guys on the team. However, you can make arguments for a small handful of guys that just missed the cut, along with players that are deserving of the Core team.
Who Just Missed The Cut
As we go back through out notes and look at some of our top guys, there are a few that make some sense. You could have argued for guys like Noah Hupmann of Evansville Day who put up double-doubles and even triple doubles this season and led Day School to one f their best seasons. The 7’0 post is developing pretty quickly in his Junior season.
Another couple players to look at here were Edreece Redmond and Hayden Jones. To guards that were the catalyst for their teams. Redmond, a 5’10 guard from Bishop Chatard, is more the scoring type and was quite impressive this season taking on a big role. He averaged 16.7 points per game along with 2.7 assists. Jones, a 5’11 guard from East Noble, helped to lead his team to a 21-4 record. He only averaged 10.2 points per game but had a massive 5.7 assists and 2.8 steals to go along with a stellar 2.16 assist-to-turnover ratio.
You could also have made the case for guys like Braxton Barnhizer of Lafayette Jeff, Victor Young from Muncie Central, Qualen Pettus from Fort Wayne Northrop, or Robert Farrell from McCutcheon. While, most of these guys are within reason of making the team, you could easily make the argument for who they would replace. Much different than a couple years back but also does kind of make it seem like a participation trophy type of recognition.
Argument Against The Core Selections
This is all a matter of preference, I guess, though I could argue that the one part of this you need to get right is the Core Group especially when the class overall isn’t strong and the top-end is shallow.
The obvious ones here are D’Andre Davis, Anthony Leal, Trey Galloway, and Nijel Pack. Ivey had a solid year but not sure he is a lock. Same with Yoder. He was impressive when we saw him but you have guys like Johnell Davis that put up more points per game and whose team was very comparable. Maybe even a guy like Tayson Parker who was much more of a one-man show for his team and carried them to an undefeated record for quite a while.
What about a guy like Kiyron Powell. The team made a good run in the postseason, farther than most through and Powell, while only averaging 10.6 points, nearly had a triple double average with 10.9 rebounds and 6.8 blocks per game.
Final Thoughts
Again, the reality of this is that you are not likely ever going to get it perfect until you have one person making the final decisions that is actually watching every player on this list. That isn’t likely happening. Also, you aren’t going to make everyone happy. This, for the most part, is the right group of 24 but I’m sure the next 50+ that didn’t make it will make an argument that they should be on here. That isn’t accurate but it makes them feel better and that is their right.
At the end of the day, I liked things better when players could make valid arguments to being on the team as opposed to what we have now which is just way too many players. It’s supposed to be an elite list and 24 is quite high to be considered that. Will it change? No. We are in an age where everyone wants their acknowledgement and we have given into that so we stand at 24 and I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets bigger with time.
Core:
D’Andre Davis – 6’6 SG 2020 – Lawrence Central (IN)
Trey Galloway – 6’4 SG 2020 – Culver Academies (IN)
Jaden Ivey – 6’3 SG 2020 – Mishawaka Marian (IN)
Anthony Leal – 6’5 SG 2020 – Bloomington South (IN)
Nijel Pack – 6’1 PG 2020 – Lawrence Central (IN)
Charlie Yoder – 6’4 SF 2020 – Westview (IN)
Red (North):
Deontae Craig – 6’4 SF 2020 – Culver Academies (IN)
Johnell Davis – 6’4 SG 2020 – Gary 21st Century (IN)
Chris Grubbs – 6’5 SF 2020 – Hamilton Southeastern (IN)
Zak Krueger – 5’10 PG 2020 – Homestead (IN)
Mabor Majak – 7’1 C 2020 – Hamilton Southeastern (IN)
Jake Wadding – 6’4 SF 2020 – Chesterton (IN)
White (Central):
Brayton Bailey – 6’2 SG 2020 – Bedford North Lawrence (IN)
Carson Barrett – 6’5 SF 2020 – Lafayette Central Catholic (IN)
Tre Coleman – 6’5 SF 2020 – Jeffersonville (IN)
Sincere McMahon – 6’1 PG 2020 – Crispus Attucks (IN)
Tayson Parker – 6’1 PG 2020 – Northwestern (IN)
Tony Perkins – 6’4 SG 2020 – Lawrence North (IN)
Blue (South):
Murray Becher – 6’4 SF 2020 – Heritage Hills (IN)
Max Gizzi – 6’1 PG 2020 – New Palestine (IN)
Noah Jager – 5’8 PG 2020 – Bloomington South (IN)
Kiyron Powell – 6’10 C 2020 – Evansville Bosse (IN)
Kenny Tracy – 6’0 PG 2020 – Decatur Central (IN)
Andrew Welage – 6’6 SF 2020 – Greensburg (IN)