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The Courier & Press granted anonymity to several high school basketball coaches in Southwestern Indiana to answer a series of questions each week in January, much like we did for football. Some responses have been edited for clarity or to guarantee anonymity.
The first: What is the biggest challenge facing high school basketball in Indiana right now?
This question elicited multiple responses. One in particular was common among girls’ coaches in the area: decreased participation. Basketball is now the fourth-most popular girls sport according to the National Federation of High Schools from the 2023-24 season, behind track & field, volleyball, and soccer.
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“The girls participation numbers in basketball is rough. You look at even the kids we have. Schools around here are playing two quarters or no quarters of JV. It’s like that in Indianapolis too. It’s a state problem and a concern.”
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“Travel volleyball is now our biggest competitor for female athletes during the winter months. Couple travel volleyball with demands from other off-season sports and overlapping fall seasons (cross country, soccer, etc.), and girls are choosing not to play.”
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“Many schools are playing limited or no JV games, and very few have a freshman team anymore. Without the freshman and JV teams, there is little time for skill development for those who need it and many of those kids end up quitting too.”
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“Speaking from the girls side, especially here in SW Indiana, I believe softball and volleyball are greatly overshadowing basketball. The game is very demanding and as the national popularity of the sport has grown on the women’s side; this has also made some broad skill gaps between girls that consistently play or play only when in season, because of this girls get turned away from the sport. Unfortunately, this issue makes itself more prominently known at smaller 1A, 2A schools where JV teams are virtually non-existent.”
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“We have always struggled to find freshmen games for our freshmen team but now we will have multiple JV games canceled due to lack of numbers. We want to keep as many players in our program as possible, but all players want to play and it can be tough to keep all of our players a good number of games each season.”
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“Low participation numbers. I feel this is due to a combination of reasons: a lot of athletic choices for girls, it seems more are specializing in a single sport at an earlier age, increased time and cost of participating in multiple sports or feeder/aau/travel teams. Possible solution – look at the Kentucky HS model for allowing middle school players to play in high school and eliminate quarter limitations.”
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“Girls is much different than guys. Guys have 50-70 kids try out across three teams. In girls, you’re lucky to field a JV team and sometimes that means keeping less talented girls to have numbers where you want them. Basketball is not a first-choice sport for girls. Soccer and volleyball will always be priority in our area.”
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“Participation. Kids are doing less. Those that do play athletics are choosing to specialize in a sport at too early of an age. I think parents should encourage their kids to do as much as they can. Stop looking for that elusive college scholarship.”
The rest of the answers varied. Other common responses included the topic of transfers, declining numbers of referees, or specialization in one-sport. Here are the rest:
“Multiple things come to mind, one of which is lack of really good coaching at lower levels. The lack of financial backing to allow a competitive balance. Some schools have everything and some schools have absolutely nothing. Another thing is the lack of vision at the highest levels. We have too many older generational people making the decisions. They are stuck in their ways. We are light years behind ball in the Indy area and have stopped developing legit talent.”
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“On the girls side, it is travel sports. Travel is almost year-round. Some female athletes are deciding to specialize in one sport.”
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“More and more high school athletes are picking a single sport and playing that sport 10 months out of the year. On the girl’s side, volleyball and soccer seem to be the sports many girls are choosing. Since many schools in the state are still less than 600 students, the best athletes are needed to play multiple sports in order to field competitive teams, and that is occurring less and less.”
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“The specialization of other sports. And we’re guilty of this too, but it’s a grind all year long. There’s not a lot of time off.”
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“One of the biggest challenges facing Indiana high school basketball is the impact of transfers. This has trickled down from the college game, and it has made things difficult for all involved.”
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“Our best referees are getting older. There seems to be fewer good young officials coming in at the bottom. Dedicated, experienced, knowledgeable, and professional officials are a necessary component for quality basketball to continue in our state, and we are in serious danger of losing that.”
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“The constant pull of student-athletes to leave their current basketball team. This could be other schools trying to ‘recruit’ a student athlete to their school, or simply a student-athlete choosing to go to a new school for ‘greener pastures’ for more playing time or scoring opportunities. I link this in with student-athletes being pulled to specialize in one sport rather than competing for their school in multiple sports. Basketball is a long-term commitment and is usually the sport to be given up to focus on sports that take a lesser commitment in terms of time and sacrifice to the team.”
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“Players transferring to prep schools/G League or other non-affiliated IHSAA institutions. We are losing the best players in the state to these institutions, and it is hurting Indiana high school basketball now.”
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“I think if you asked all high coaches if they would like their student-athletes to participate in multiple sports at their high school, almost all coaches would say yes. If you asked many college coaches if they would like the players they are recruiting to play multiple sports, they would say yes. But there are so many ‘showcases’ and ‘travel ball/AAU tournaments’ and ‘personal trainers outside of the school’ that are all persuading many student-athletes to focus only on themselves individually rather than playing for their school and community.”
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“The same challenge that is facing all IHSAA-sanctioned sports: specialization of athletes in one sport. Kids are being encouraged by travel team coaches to focus on one thing. They are convincing kids that by competing in multiple sports, they are getting behind in their recruitment. This is having a very detrimental impact on participation in sports, especially at smaller schools that rely on three-sport athletes.”
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“I think we have way too many kids who are playing one sport and training in that one sport year-round. This increases injury, limits numbers in school sports, and takes away from some of the best athletes helping their schools in sports across the calendar.”
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“There are not an adequate amount of officials with the experience and skill level needed to officiate at the varsity level. I believe that everyone is doing their best, no doubt, and we do have some good officials in the area. However, many officials are overworked and additionally, officials are being called up that aren’t quite ready. Finally, the changes in the rules have made things more difficult for officials (i.e. flop rule, sideline OB spots) to call games.”
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Kids leaving schools to go elsewhere. The IHSAA is looking at a one-time transfer rule, which may help but will also encourage kids to really look at that greener grass elsewhere for their sport. Whether that is another school public/private, or a prep institution/academy, I believe we will see a lot of movement similar to the college level in the future. This will eventually lead to NIL, which is already being implemented in some states for high school athletes.”
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The girls season starts too soon. The girls who play a fall sport, especially volleyball, get no break in between sports. When they get out of the tournament on a Saturday, they start basketball on that Monday. Unless a football team makes it deep into the tournament, the boys do not have to deal with this. This then causes kids not wanting to come out for basketball because they just finished another sport and they have no break in between sports.”
