Area teams, players honored by IBCA for academics
· Yahoo Sports
Eighty-seven Indiana high school seniors – 44 boys and 43 girls – have been chosen as first-team Academic All-State for 2026 by the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association, it was announced Wednesday. In addition, 233 more boys and 181 more girls were recognized as honorable mention Academic All-State for 2026.
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IBCA-member head coaches from schools across the state may nominate their senior student-athletes who meet criteria that include a 3.50 GPA or higher on a 4.0 scale, a class rank in the upper 25 percent of one's class and either an SAT score of 1100 (on the reading and math sections) or an ACT composite score of 24.
Local boys receiving Academic All-State Honorable Mention included Clayton Chase (Rushville), Liam Gurley (Rushville), Trenten Luers (Batesville), Logan O'Dell (North Decatur), Ethan Schneider (Batesville) and Ethan Smith (Greensburg).
Local boys receiving Academic All-State Honorable Mention included Mary Harmon (Greensburg), Mikayla Herbert (Rushville), Makenna Ripberger (Rushville), Maddie Ryan (Oldenburg Academy), Rachel Suttmann (Oldenburg Academy) and Rebecca Tabeling (Rushville).
A new award in 2026 is an IBCA Team Academic Award, for which 128 teams qualified. The IBCA firmly believes that academics are an essential component of developing well-rounded basketball players and that outstanding academic achievement deserves recognition.
Inaugural winners of the IBCA Team Academic Award – 29 boys’ teams and 99 girls’ teams – are teams that demonstrate the same commitment to excellence in academics as they do in athletics. To qualify, each team listed had a cumulative team GPA of 3.50 or better when averaging the first-semester GPAs of all players on its 2026 sectional roster.
Batesville's boys' basketball team was honored with the 2026 IBCA Team Academic Award.
For the girls' area teams, Greensburg, Oldenburg Academy, Rushville and South Decatur were all honored with the 2026 IBCA Team Academic Award.
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