BENNETT'S MINUTES: Hall to honor ex-Tiger Cub star

The leading girls’ basketball scorer in Putnam County history was not named to the Indiana All-Stars in 1992, but Laura Ledbetter (Branagin) hasn’t been forgotten.

Ledbetter was one of 18 women recently named to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame’s 2017 Silver Anniversary Team, based on outstanding accomplishments as a senior basketball player 25 years ago.

The team includes 11 members of the 1992 Indiana All-Star squad, among them Indiana’s Miss Basketball -- Marla (Inman) Eltrevoog.

The other 10 Indiana All-Stars on this year’s Silver Anniversary Team include Miss Basketball as well as Lisa (Furlin) Burnison of Valparaiso, Melissa (Taylor) Celichowski of Floyd Central, Kristin (Mattox) Cox of Charlestown, Melina Griffin of Anderson, Faith (Cyr) Griswold of Benton Central, Lisa (Mahone) Ingram of Ben Davis, Lori (Sparling) Mauck of Carmel, Megan (Hupfer) McCloskey of Pendleton Heights, Kathy Peters-Rock of Crown Point and Missy (Wade) Satterfield of Columbus North.

The remaining Silver Anniversary team members, who were named to various all-state teams, are Megan Boguslawski of Michigan Citiy Elston, Monica (Cox) Peck of Noblesville, Livia (Hester) Scott of Terre Haute North, Charmonique Stallworth of South Bend Washington, Daria (Weitekamp) Terrell of Sullivan and Leslie (Wade) VanHoy of Loogootee.

Ledbetter set nine school or county records, including the Putnam County career scoring record (boys or girls) with 1,836 points, graduating 11th in Indiana high school girls’ history at the time and still sitting in 66th place. She also set school’s season scoring (508), single-game scoring (41), season scoring average (27.4 ppg), career rebounds (811), season blocks (83), season FG% (56.5%), season steals (75) and single-game steals (11) records.

She was named four times to the all-county team, three times as all-conference, 1992 all-sectional and 1992 Ben Davis all-regional. Ledbetter was also twice named a National Women’s Basketball Magazine All-American, 1992 2nd team AP all-state, 1992 East-West All-Star and 1992 Top 40 Workout participant. Ledbetter was also a member of the 1990 Indiana National Travel Team to China, and played one season at Kent State University and one season at Olivet Nazarene University.

She is a Family Nurse Practitioner with Eskenazi Health in Indianapolis. Married with six children, she lives in Plainfield.

All Women’s Silver Anniversary Team members will be honored at the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame’s 16th Annual Women’s Banquet on April 29.

The ceremony will take place at the Primo Banquet Hall, which is located on the south side of Indianapolis. Tickets will be made available in coming weeks or can be reserved through the Hall’s website at www.hoopshall.com. Call the Hall at (765) 529-1891 or email info@hoopshall.com for more information.

In other basketball news:

• Neese on McDonald’s list – The honors continue to come in for Cloverdale senior Cooper Neese, who was named on Tuesday as a nominee for the prestigious McDonald’s All-American Game scheduled for March 29 in Chicago. The boys’ game will be the 40th in the event’s history.

The rosters have yet to be announced, but the players will be chosen from the state-by-state list of nominees.

On the boys side, California leads with 56 players nominated with 15 players nominated from Georgia and 12 from Illinois. Ten players were nominated from Indiana, with the Butler-bound Neese being one of only three from Indiana High School Athletic Association schools.

Others chosen were Kris Wilkes of Indianapolis North Central (UCLA) and Malik Williams of Fort Wayne Snider (Louisville).

Six players were chosen from the LaLumiere School in LaPorte, a private school unaffiliated with the IHSAA that attracts players from all over the country. Players chosen from LaLu were Brian Bowen, Isiah Coleman Landis, Jacob Epperson, Jaren Jackson Jr. (formerly of Park Tudor) and Jordan Poole.

Marcus Smith of Horizon Christian Academy in Fort Wayne was also chosen as a nominee, as well as former Southport standout Paul Scruggs of Prolific Prep School in California (Xavier signee).

Also nominated was Kyle Young of Massilon, Ohio – who has also signed with Butler.

• Climbing the charts – With 61 points last weekend in two victories, Neese now has 2,190 career points to move into 18th place on the state scoring list. Neese passed eight players last weekend, including current NBA standout Eric Gordon of Indianapolis North Central and former Concord and NBA star Shawn Kemp.

Neese and the Clovers have a minimum of 10 games remaining this season, factoring in a one-game minimum guarantee in sectional play. Should he maintain his average of 30 points per game over that span, he would finish with 2,490 points – to place him seventh overall.

A long tourney run, or scoring above his average, could obviously increase those numbers.

Teammate Jalen Moore currently stands at 995 points, leaving him just a few minutes of action short of joining the 1,000 club.

• It’s almost tourney time – The 42nd annual girls’ sectional tourney will begin on Jan. 30, but the pairings will be drawn on Sunday in a televised program on Fox Sports Indiana (also webstreamed at ihsaatv.org).

The pairings were moved up a week from its originally scheduled date due to programming conflicts among the IHSAA’s television and radio network partners.

The 90-minute television show will begin at 6 p.m., hosted by Jerry Baker, Pat McKee and Jeremiah Johnson of Fox Sports Indiana.

For viewers outside of the Fox Sports Indiana coverage area, a live stream will be available at IHSAAtv.org. For those within the FSI coverage area, the stream will be available only on delayed basis later that evening.

Greencastle will play in the Class 3A Lebanon sectional, currently holding the second-best record, while Cloverdale, North Putnam and South Putnam will all play in the Class 2A Cascade sectional.

• Nearby tourney results – Recent tournament in nearby Hendricks and Montgomery counties had some interesting results.

In the Hendricks County boys’ tournament, Tri-West won three games to capture the title – defeating Brownsburg 57-56 in the first round, Danville 52-40 in the second round and Cascade 83-53 in the championship.

Cascade had reached the championship by defeating Plainfield 65-55 (after receiving a first-round bye).

In the Sugar Creek Classic involving the three Montgomery County boys’ teams and Western Boone, Crawfordsville won the title by defeating Southmont 54-52 in overtime in the championship game.

Crawfordsville had defeated Western Boone 68-40 and Southmont defeated North Montgomery 62-51 in the semifinals.

• Big scorer shutdown – Greencastle’s girls faced two of the state’s top 10 scorers in a three-day span last week, as they went up against Terre Haute South’s Amani Brown (now ninth at 23.8 points per game) on Wednesday and Northview’s Stacy Payton (now sixth at 24.4 points per game).

Brown scored 28 points against the Tiger Cubs, and followed up that outing with 38 points on Saturday against Bloomington North.

Payton had 22 points in a loss to Greencastle on Friday night, but had 33 points on Saturday in a big 62-58 road win against Owen Valley.

Other nearby state scoring leaders include Riverton Parke’s Tayler Vauters (12th at 23.3) and possible Greencastle sectional opponent Brooke Montgomery of Lebanon (23rd at 21.1).

Previous Greencastle opponent Beech Grove has two players in the top 30, with Cameron Cardenas 24th at 20.9 and Katie Giller 27th at 20.7 Madison Jones of Western Boone is 43rd at 18.8

• WIC standings – As the Western Indiana Conference season heads into the final doubleheader night on Friday, the divisional champions have mostly been decided with the final order of finish still having a few questions before the crossover games are set.

In the boys’ standings, Edgewood and Northview each stands at 4-0. The Mustangs host Owen Valley on Friday, and would clinch the East Division with a win. Cascade has played one fewer league game than the others, so should OV win on Friday the final order cannot yet be determined.

Cloverdale would finish third with a win over Cascade on Friday, and would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Cadets even if Cascade defeats Indian Creek on Jan. 21.

Northview has won the West Division with a 4-0 mark, and plays at South Putnam on Friday. Should the Eagles win, the Knights would still win the tiebreaker over whoever wins the Sullivan-West Vigo game.

On the girls’ side, Cascade will be the East Division champ and Greencastle has won the West title.

The Cadets play Cloverdale on Friday, but would win a tiebreaker over second-place Owen Valley or Indian Creek, while Greencastle is 4-0 and would win a tiebreaker over Northview even with a loss to North Putnam on Friday.

The girls’ crossover games are Jan. 20, with the boys’ games the following Friday.