This past Thursday, Indiana boys basketball’s All-State selections were announced. Two Fort Wayne stars (Blackhawk’s Caleb Furst and Homestead’s Luke Goode) were selected to the Underclassmen Supreme 15 group. Two others (Snider’s Dillon Duff and Michael Eley) received Large School All-State selections; Duff as a senior, Eley as an underclassman. Seven others received honorable mentions. And there were many standout athletes on that list.
One of those athletes was Carroll’s Jalen Jackson. He was instrumental in leading the Chargers to a 17-win season and an SAC Holiday Tournament championship. He had two double-digit scoring nights in the tourney and picked up a double-double (20 points, 12 rebounds) in the championship against Snider. On the season, he averaged 11.8 points per game, 5.6 rebounds per game, and 2.4 assists per game. Since Jackson is a sophomore, head coach Marty Beasley is greatly looking forward to coaching him again in the future.
“[I’m] extremely excited to watch his game and his mentality to continue to develop and become a complete player that will be college-ready,” Beasley said.
SAC regular-season champs Bishop Luers had two players who received honorable mentions. One of them was Senior DeMarcus Hudson. Hudson was the Knights leading scorer for most of the season, until suffering a season-ending foot injury. He finished the season as the team’s second-leading scorer with 15.9 points per game. He was also Luers’ second-leading rebounder, averaging 5.4 per game. He gives a lot of credit to his teammates and his coaches.
“My teammates helped me get into that position and trusted me,” Hudson said. My coaches trusted me to put the ball in the hole and go get rebounds and get steals and assists, and that’s what I tried to do my whole time at Luers.”
Junior Naylon Thompson was given an honorable mention as an underclassman. He finished the season as the Knights’ leading scorer averaging 16 points per game. He also led them in rebounds with 6.4 per game and was the second leader in assists with 2.4 per game.
“It’s not really something, during the season, that I was thinking about, [I was thinking more about the] team aspect,” Thompson said. “After it was all said and done, the season didn’t end how we wanted, [but] it does feel nice to be recognized for the hard work that we did put in”.
A year removed from Blackhawk Christian’s state championship, they had two players receive honorable mentions, in addition to Caleb Furst being named to the Supreme 15 group.
Junior guard Zane Burke was one of those honorable mentions. He made a position change this past year. He was a shooting guard last year and played point guard this year. Even with the change, Burke was the Braves’ second-leading scorer, averaging 17.5 points per game; and was their leader in assists, averaging 4.2 per game.
“It’s always good when you’re able to get some all-state recognition,” Burke said. “I’m just going to keep working hard, and hopefully next year I can step up to All-State, we’ll see how it goes.”
Fellow junior guard Marcus Davidson (the son of head coach Marc Davidson) was the other Brave to receive an honorable mention. He was Blackhawk Christian’s third-leading scorer (15.9 points per game), and their second leader in assists (4.1 per game).
“I’m really thankful for it, it’s a pretty big deal,” Davidson said. “I’m thankful to all my teammates and the coaches and the Lord for making this available.”
Both Burke and Davidson were great three-point shooters as well. Davidson shot 48% from beyond the arc, and Burke shot 46% from three.
South Side’s Treveon Jones also received an honorable mention. Jones was one of three Archers to average double digits in points per game; Kamron Mitchell and Ashton Johnson were the other two. He was the team’s leading scorer (17.3 points per game) also led them in rebounding (5.0 per game).
Dwenger’s Brenden Lytle was another honorable mention. He was the Saints’ starting point guard and frequently put up double-digit point totals. That included a game against Leo where he scored 20 points. In that game, Lytle also came up with 6 steals.
