Blackmon leads Indiana to comeback win
Indiana commit James Blackmon Jr. scored 21 of his 27 points in the
second half, leading the Indiana Junior All-Stars to a 108-102 overtime win over the Kentucky Junior All-Stars. The game played at Greenfield (Ind.) Central High School was the first ever match-up between the two state's Junior All-Stars.
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Indiana fought back from an 11-point second half deficit to force the
extra period. Rivals.com 4-star wing Trevon Bluiett of Indianapolis
Park Tudor added 17 points.
Blackmon Jr. hit a pair of second half treys and was 7-for-8 from the free throw line.
For the future Hoosier, it just took time to adjust to the format and
new teammates.
"Especially with the five-man switches it takes awhile to get together,
but once we got going as a team it was great," said Blackmon Jr. "I got
it going and the coach had the confidence in me (to stay in)."
For head coach Brent Chitty, it wasn't a hard decision to leave the
6-foot-3 combo guard in the game for most of the second half.
"For me it was," said Chitty. "He got warmed up and he did the same
thing in practice. We only got to see them one day but in practice he
started out slow but by the second practice we had, it was like
okay...You guys kind of saw it (tonight)."
Kentucky was without a couple key players, Louisville commit Quentin
Snider and power forward Shane Hall. A late addition to the team, Chris
Cunningham of Lexington Henry Clay led the team with 20 points and
Justin Johnson of Perry County Central had 18 points. Johnson was a big
reason the visitors led throught the first half.
In the girls game Iowa commit Whitney Jennings of Logansport had 23
points to lead Indiana to a 79-67 victory.
Both the girls and boys teams go at it again in Louisville tonight at
St. Xavier High School. The girls game will tip at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Here are the scoring boxes for the teams last night:
Boys Game
Indiana (108) - Blackmon 27, McIntosh 10, Coleman 3, McCall 9, Bluiett
17, Lyle 0, Lyles 6, Korn 12, Persons 6, Evans 3, Mercer 9, Wideman 6
Kentucky (102) - Bach 4, Burns 8, Davis 12, Gilbert 5, Cunningham 20,
Shelton 2, Green 7, Grundy 10, Johnson 18, Martin 16
Girls game
Indiana (79) - Fincher 3, Goodall 2, Grose 8, Olson 2, Moore 2, Buck 5,
Heath 2, Kirkhoff 17, Jennings 23, Muensterman 8, Brown 1, Smith 6
Kentucky (67) - Castle 1, Owings 4, Brown 10, Cooley 4, Futscher 5,
Kierman 2, McKee 14, Potter 7, Wheeler 5, Cann 0, Lawrence 7, Smith 8