Ryan Cline and the Indiana All-Stars Overwhelm Kentucky 88-77

The Indiana boys' team has now won 14-straight all-star games against Kentucky, while the girls earned their fourth-straight. Despite the absence of both states' Mr. Basketball, 6,533 fans turned out to watch a great game between two talented groups in both the girls' and boys' games. In the girls' game, Indiana was in control from start to finish as Miss Basketball Ali Patberg led her team to an 88-58 victory. Patberg scored a game-high 16 points. Meanwhile, Purdue commit Tiara Murphy played well and finished with 8 points as her future teammates Dominique McBryde and Lamina Cooper sat out with injuries. A fourth Purdue recruit, Nora Keisler, scored 2 for Kentucky. One last thing I'd like to mention, is how impressed I was with the smallest girl on the court, Darby Maggard of Fort Wayne Canterbury, check out Gregg Doyle's write-up on her at the IndyStar.

The boys from Indiana didn't make winning look near as easy as the girls did. Nonetheless, after trailing 33-32 at the half, Princeton commit Devin Cannady and the rest of the Indiana boys exploded for a 56-point second half and an 11-point victory. Cannady received Player of the Game honors after leading Indiana with 17 points. However, the most consistent player on the night was probably Guerin Catholic's Matt Hobla, a Lehigh commit, who was perfect from both the field (5-5) and the line (6-6) en route to a 16 point, 6 rebound performance. Ryan Welage, a future San Jose State Spartan, struggled from the floor, but did retrieve an impressive 12 rebounds in just 17 minutes. For Kentucky, Aric Holman led all scorers with 21, and also grabbed 8 boards.

I did my best to keep a close eye on Ryan Cline all night, and I really liked what I saw. Cline didn't have as impressive a night on the stat sheet as he had the night before. Some of which can be attributed to Kentucky tightening their defense on him after last night, but his 11 points were crucial to Indiana's victory. He had a bit of an off-night from deep, going 3-9, but I still came away impressed with his shooting ability. He has played more minutes than any other all-star this week and it started to show a bit, but that also says a lot about how important a player he was to the Indiana coaches.

The 6'5" guard also looked comfortable bringing the ball up the court and hit two of his threes in transition off the dribble. Another big thing I saw is that he seemed to be a good teammate and leader on and off the court. He did a lot of communicating and encouraging during and in-between plays. The hustle plays were there too. For me, it is always a good sign when a guy is willing to sacrifice his body to help his team even though it is just an exhibition. After watching him in person, I don't think we will see him redshirt next season. That is just my opinion, but with his talent and seeming willingness to do whatever is needed of him on the court, it'll be hard to keep him on the bench all year.

Finally, it was really nice to see the crowd support and teammate support for Josh Speidel, the Columbus North star who suffered a traumatic brain injury during a car crash earlier this year. Josh received a huge ovation from the crowd during introductions and then got to celebrate with his teammates during and after the game.