Central boys basketball coach Jeff Holloway was excited for the opportunity for his players. His team was scheduled to play Corydon Central on Dec. 22 in the State Fairgrounds Coliseum, but that game has now been canceled.
The two-day basketball event scheduled at the renovated coliseum has been canceled after an investigation by the Indiana High School Athletic Association uncovered several potential rules violations.
Holloway said it was a disappointment his team wouldn’t be playing the marquee game, one he thought would potentially give his players exposure with college coaches.
“When they initially approached us to do it, I thought, ‘what a great opportunity for the kids to be able to play there,’ ” Holloway said.
Central athletic director Suzanne Crump said the school is finalizing an arrangement to play a road game against Fishers on Dec. 23 in place of the Corydon Central game, but that contract has not been completed.
Fishers is coming off an 8-13 season with a difficult schedule that included Hamilton Southeastern (once in regular season and again in sectionals), Carmel and Brownsburg, among other heralded foes.
“They play really good teams and they’re going to be tough,” Holloway said. “So hopefully we don’t fall into that trap of looking at somebody’s record and thinking they’re not good. We’ll prepare to go play.”
Members of the IHSAA staff met with representatives from John Marshall High School and Indianapolis Public Schools on Tuesday to discuss the 9th Annual Midwest Showcase. The event is run annually by fifth-year Marshall coach Aaron Sembly, who started the showcase while coaching at Howe.
IHSAA commissioner Bobby Cox said the most significant and glaring of issues is that Marshall principal Ashauna Short, who was hired in December, hadn’t approved the event and wasn’t even aware of its existence. Without the school’s approval, Cox said Sembly was acting essentially as a third party.
“The event was fraught with errors from the beginning,” Cox said.
Among the other games scheduled in the event was a mathup between Richmond (coached by Wapahani graduate Joe Luce) and Park Tudor (coached by Blue River graduate Kyle Cox).
Because there were out-of-state teams scheduled to participate (two from Ohio and two from Illinois) and several co-sponsors, it needed to be sanctioned by the IHSAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations. Bobby Cox said sanctioning was never granted and was never applied for in this or previous years. He said there were also irregularities with finances of the event in previous years.
“Unfortunately we have adults who don’t know how to follow the rules,” Bobby Cox said. “In this case, the by-laws were not being adhered to. If we’re going to have third parties that contribute finances, it has to be a sanctioned event. We had an individual operating on their own and sending invitations and entering into agreements with businesses without the principal of the school knowing what was going on.”
Bobby Cox said he encouraged the teams scheduled to participate in the event to still play at one of the schools.
Sembly said he preferred not to comment when reached on Wednesday afternoon, but was hopeful that the teams involved would still play one another, possibly some of them at the Fairgrounds Coliseum.
Star Press reporter Sam Wilson contributed to this report.
