As the weather begins to warm back up and winter sports turn into the spring season, one IHSAA sport still awaits their postseason. Boys basketball has the title of last sport played of all the winter sports with Sectional championships on March 1st and 2nd.
The boys basketball team plays in a loaded Sectional 13 being hosted at Bloomington North. Included in the top teams are Center Grove, Bloomington South and Mooresville, who are all teams at or above the .500 mark.
“Our Sectional is pretty loaded,” senior John Ollanketo, guard, said. “The top three or four teams are all above .500, and even the ones that have records that aren’t as good still have either beat us or play really solid basketball against good teams.”
Woodmen basketball is no stranger to playing in tough Sectionals. Since 2010, Center Grove has won the Sectional title five times compared to the one title won by GHS in the cut-short 2020 season. Over the last 15 years, GHS has played in a Sectional with at least two teams ranked in the Top 30 of the state’s best teams.
“Sectional 13 is stacked in every sport,” Ollanketo said. “You look at baseball, basketball, and even football, who have different teams, we don’t get let off easy in the postseason. We’re in a spot where a lot of schools in 4A with us are a little bigger with more kids and we end up playing all these tough teams. In the end, it makes us better, and we aren’t afraid of the competition. We all look back to the 2020 team who beat one of the best CG teams there had been in awhile. We want to bring that kind of energy and winning back here. Even if we can’t do it, we want the underclassmen to.”
In the Sectional and beyond, it is win or go home. Having that mentality has an extra bit of emotion for some seniors who are playing their last high school game and even their last game of competitive basketball all together.
“We have to have the mindset that it could be our last time putting on the Greenwood jersey,” senior Jake Mosemann, guard, said. “I have been playing with varsity for four years, and it’ll be bittersweet to take the jersey off the last time. I think it’ll definitely be emotional, but I’ll be eager for the next step no matter where I go on to.”
The goal for every team in the state tournament is to win a state championship. The goal is no different for Woodmen basketball, but they are taking the process one game at a time.
“The biggest thing for us is taking everything one play, one half, and one game at a time,” Mosemann said. “We have to slow things down and keep within ourselves so we don’t let things get out of hand or make ourselves go crazy. We can’t start thinking about the next step without completing the one we are on first. That goes for handling the ball and looking ahead at games.”
Of the six teams in Sectional 13, three compete in the Mid-State conference, one that is up for grabs for most teams near the top of the standings. Playing in such a competitive conference and building a tough regular season schedule plays into the hands of the Woodmen.
“We already have played Mooresville, Martinsville and CG but not the two Bloomington schools,” Ollanketo said. “We pulled Bloomington South who is a tough team and they play hard. Unfortunately they aren’t a team we have experienced so we have to study a ton of film and lock in during practice.”
Bloomington South is a 14-9 squad coming from a tough Conference Indiana where they boast a 4-1 record which is good enough for 2nd place in the current standings.
“Their conference is really solid and they play a lot of really good basketball teams,” Mosemann said. “You look at their conference and it’s all teams that play hard and fundamentally sound basketball. They find ways to win games almost every night and it’ll be a tough matchup for us but nothing we aren’t used to.”
The Panthers have one of the most storied programs in the state. Head Coach JR Holmes has accumulated over 900 wins and is the all-time wins leader in IHSAA boys basketball history.
“They are coached well with one of the best coaches of all time,” Ollanketo said. “He has been winning for decades and coaches his teams extremely well. They are fundamental and play hard defense and don’t force bad shots on the offensive side.”
Playing a team like Bloomington South requires the Woodmen to be sound on offense and not give up too many turnovers. Complimenting a clean offense with strong defense is the recipe for a Woodmen win.
“We just need to take care of the basketball to be blunt,” Mosemann said. “In our games we fall apart in the second half from turnovers and dig ourselves into a hole. We cannot let that happen against a team as good as them. We have to be good on offense and play aggressive on the defensive side.”
The Woodmen will take on Bloomington South tonight at Bloomington North High School at 6 p.m.
