IBCA E-Newsletter

IBCA weekly honors program for 2025-26

As many as 100 high school boys and girls will have the opportunity to win IBCA Player of the Week recognition in 2025-26. This is the 18th season of the IBCA Player of the Week program.

Now for a second season, the IBCA is continuing an IBCA Team of the Week program.

The IBCA Player of the Week program was started in 2008-09, and it will continue in 2025-26 by presenting awards to deserving boys and girls who had outstanding weeks. The IBCA Team of the Week program, started in 2024-25, again will recognize at least one girls’ team and one boys’ team each week throughout the playing season.

The Indiana Pacers/Indiana Fever served as the presenting partner of the Player of the Week awards from 2008-09 through 2011-12. Subway Restaurants of Indiana served as the presenting partner of the Player of the Week awards from 2012-13 through 2019-20. Franciscan Health Sports Medicine served as presenting partner of the Player of the Week awards from 2020-21 through 2024-25.

Ballogy, an IBCA corporate partner since 2022 in helping present the IBCA/IHSAA Top 100 Underclass Showecase events, expanded its partnership for 2024-25 to be the presenting partner of the IBCA/Ballogy Team of the Week. Ballogy will continue as the presenting partner of the Team of the Week program for 2025-26.

In the 2024-25 season, 87 players – 49 boys and 38 girls – were recognized with IBCA/Franciscan Health Sports Medicine Player of the Week awards. In addition, 34 teams – 17 boys and 17 girls – were recognized as an IBCA/Ballogy Team of the Week.

For the coming season, plans are for at least one boy and one girl from each of the three IHSAA districts to be honored each week in the Player of the Week program. The IBCA would prefer that nominations come from coaches of potential winners. Coaches of each winner are to be current-year IBCA members.

To submit a Player of the Week nominee, please go to the IBCA website – in.nhsbca.org – after your last game of a given week (in a Monday through Saturday week), click on nomination forms, then click on the Player of the Week nomination form for the correct gender and complete the form. If you played more than one game in the week, please provide information for every game of the week in the form. Nominations are due by noon Monday each week for games of the previous Monday through Saturday.

For the new season in the Team of the Week, more teams may be recognized. The review panel may opt to recognize more than one team per gender per week, depending on circumstances of a given week.

To submit a Team of the Week nomination, again go to the IBCA website after your last game of a given week (in a Monday through Saturday week), click on the Team of the Week nomination form and then complete the form. If your team played more than one game in the week, please provide information for every game of the week. Nominations are due by noon Monday each week for games of the previous Monday through Saturday.

Kip Staggs, former boys’ coach at Martinsville, is overseeing the boys’ Player of the Week and boys’ Team of the Week program for 2025-26. Debbie Smiley, former girls’ coach at Brownsburg, is overseeing the girls’ Player of the Week and girls’ Team of the Week program for 2025-26. Staggs can be reached via email at kip.staggs@msdmartinsville.org; Smiley can be reached via email at dsmiley@brownsburg.k12.in.us.

The Player and Team of the Week programs run every week of the season – girls from Nov. 3 through Feb. 28; boys from Nov. 24 through March 28).

After players are selected during a given week, they will be added to a growing list of IBCA Players of the Week. At the end of the season, IBCA Player of the Week winners and the head coach for Team of the Week honorees from 2025-26 will receive a certificate in recognition of the achievement.

The first deadline for reports for the coming season will be noon Monday, Nov. 10 for girls and noon Monday, Dec. 1 for boys. These will continue each week through the Monday following the IHSAA Girls’ State Finals and IHSAA Boys’ State Finals.