Three programs define the current era of Indiana Class 3A basketball teams heading into next season: Indianapolis Cathedral, Silver Creek, and Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory. All three were tangled together at the top of the bracket during the 2025-26 tournament run, and all three enter 2026-27 with real reason to believe they’ll be right back in the mix.
Why These Indiana Class 3A Basketball Teams Stand Above the Rest
The 2025-26 season produced one of the more tightly contested Class 3A tournament runs in recent memory, and these three programs were at the center of nearly every twist. Cathedral needed to beat both Silver Creek and Brebeuf just to reach the state championship game, then closed out the season with a 71-61 win over New Haven at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for the program’s third state title in school history and second in five years.
Indianapolis Cathedral Enters as the Program to Beat
Cathedral finished last season 25-5, capping the run with back-to-back wins over Princeton Community and Silver Creek to win the Seymour Semi-State — the program’s fifth semi-state title in school history. The path to Indianapolis wasn’t easy. Cathedral first had to avenge an earlier loss to crosstown rival Indianapolis Crispus Attucks, winning 81-63 in the sectional round to secure the program’s 12th sectional title all-time, before grinding out a 69-67 regional win over Brebeuf.
The Irish leaned on pressure defense and up-tempo play all postseason, and the team embraced an underdog mentality despite its tradition-rich history. “We knew a lot of people were kind of doubting us this year, not expecting us to win, and I think it was just something to add some fire,” senior guard Julien Smith said after the championship win. Assistant coach Aundrey Wright put the program’s standard in blunt terms afterward: “There is a standard of excellence at Cathedral, but we know as coaches and administrators that it’s hard to get here. Everybody wants to get here, and you’re going to be everybody’s Super Bowl when you’re at Cathedral.”
With Smith and other key senior contributors now graduated, Cathedral enters 2026-27 needing to reload rather than simply reload — but a program with this level of infrastructure and a fifth semi-state banner in the rafters rarely stays down long.
Silver Creek Chases Its Second State Title
Few Indiana Class 3A basketball teams have built the kind of sustained excellence Silver Creek has managed over the past decade. The Dragons entered the 2025-26 semi-state round undefeated at 27-1 and carried the state’s No. 1 ranking in Class 3A for most of the season, only to fall to Cathedral 73-68 in a tight semi-state battle that ended their bid for a perfect season. Silver Creek closed the year 27-2, one of the best single-season records of any program in the state regardless of class.
This isn’t new territory for the program. Silver Creek won its first-ever state championship in any sport back in 2019, upsetting defending Class 3A champion Culver Academies 52-49 at what was then Bankers Life Fieldhouse. That team was ranked sixth in its class entering the championship game and rallied from a brutal 3-for-15 shooting start in the first quarter to beat a Culver Academies squad that was attempting to become just the third program to win back-to-back 3A titles since the class system began in 1998.
With that kind of program-wide pedigree already established, Silver Creek enters 2026-27 as a near-annual lock to contend deep into the Class 3A tournament bracket, regardless of which specific names fill out the roster in any given year.
Brebeuf Jesuit Keeps Pushing for a Breakthrough
Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory finished 2025-26 at 18-6, entering the postseason ranked 10th in Class 3A before its tight 69-67 regional loss to eventual state champion Cathedral. That kind of near-miss against the program that went on to win it all speaks to how competitive the gap has become at the top of Class 3A — Brebeuf isn’t chasing Cathedral and Silver Creek from a distance anymore, it’s trading close, meaningful postseason games with both.
What to Expect Heading Into Next Season
All three of these Indiana Class 3A basketball teams will need to replace significant senior production from last year’s tournament runs, which is standard for high school programs cycling through four-year rosters. What separates Cathedral, Silver Creek, and Brebeuf from the rest of the class isn’t any single roster in a given year — it’s the sustained infrastructure, coaching continuity, and postseason experience each program has built over multiple tournament cycles.
Cathedral’s blend of program tradition and defensive identity, Silver Creek’s remarkable recent consistency at the top of the class, and Brebeuf’s continued ability to push both of those programs to the brink all suggest the top of Class 3A will remain just as competitive entering 2026-27 as it was during last season’s tightly contested tournament run.
The Bottom Line
Individual player rankings for next season’s underclassmen weren’t reliably available at the time of writing, but the program-level picture is clear: any conversation about the state’s top Indiana Class 3A basketball teams next season has to start with Cathedral, Silver Creek, and Brebeuf, the same three programs that decided last year’s tournament among themselves before Cathedral ultimately hoisted the trophy.
Why Program Continuity Matters More Than Any Single Roster
High school basketball turns over its rosters every single year by definition, which makes program-level continuity the more reliable predictor of sustained success than any specific senior class. Cathedral’s coaching staff has now guided the program to five semi-state titles, giving it institutional knowledge of exactly what a deep tournament run requires — from sectional preparation through the pressure of a state championship weekend at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. That kind of experience doesn’t graduate with any single class of seniors.
Silver Creek’s situation tells a similar story from a different angle. A program that’s produced multiple deep tournament runs across the better part of a decade, including a shocking first state title back in 2019, has clearly built a culture and a feeder system capable of reloading rather than rebuilding from scratch each offseason. The Dragons’ 27-2 finish last season wasn’t a one-year fluke — it was the product of a program that’s consistently found itself among the state’s best in Class 3A year after year.
Brebeuf’s continued presence in these tight postseason battles, even without a state title of its own yet, suggests the Braves have built similar infrastructure and simply need a favorable postseason bracket to break through. A one-possession regional loss to the eventual state champion is the kind of result that, over enough seasons, tends to produce a breakthrough run rather than a permanent ceiling.
Looking Ahead to the 2026-27 Season
Expect all three programs to open next season ranked near the top of the preseason Class 3A poll, with the specific order likely shaped by summer AAU performances, transfer additions, and whichever underclassmen step into the void left by graduated seniors like Cathedral’s Julien Smith. Until individual player rankings for the upcoming season become more reliably available, tracking these three programs’ summer and fall workouts remains the clearest early signal of who’s positioned to make another deep run when the 2026-27 tournament bracket is finally set next March.
