Every team in Class 4A is chasing the same ghost this fall — and it isn’t the reigning champion’s roster. It’s the two stars who just left it. The Indiana Class 4A basketball preseason preview 2026-27 season opens with genuinely open competition: both teams that played for the title in March graduated their best player, which means the class that looked settled in April is scrambled by August. Here’s an early look at where the contenders stand, built on confirmed roster and recruiting news rather than guesswork — a full ranked Top 20 will follow once fall practice and non-conference schedules firm up the picture in November.
Why the Reigning Champion Isn’t the Favorite
Mt. Vernon (Fortville) won the program’s first-ever boys basketball state title in March, rallying from a 10-point halftime deficit to beat Crown Point 52-50 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The engine behind that run, Purdue signee Luke Ertel, was named the 86th Indiana Mr. Basketball weeks later. He’s gone. So is fellow senior contributor Brady Webber, who won the Trester Mental Attitude Award in the title game. Mt. Vernon returns junior forward Max Vise, a 6-foot-8 shot-blocker who had 12 points and five rebounds in the championship game, giving the Marauders a proven building block — but replacing a Mr. Basketball-caliber floor general is a different challenge entirely.
Crown Point’s Rebuild Is Even Steeper
Crown Point reached its first boys basketball state final in program history but fell just short, and the Bulldogs now have to replace Dikembe Shaw, a UIC commit who averaged 17.4 points and six rebounds as a senior and was named among the state’s top 10 players by Rivals. Shaw’s departure leaves a significant scoring void for a program that was ranked No. 2 in Class 4A entering the championship game. Crown Point’s ability to reload will be one of the more closely watched storylines in the northern part of the state this season.
Fishers Enters as an Early Favorite
If any program enters the year with both continuity and talent, it’s Fishers. New head coach Miles Wayer — a former Tigers assistant who returned home after a season at Greenfield-Central — inherits a roster built around returning guards Jason Gardner Jr. and Cooper Zachary.
Both are members of the Indiana Junior All-Stars core group and both are viewed as early candidates for the 2027 Mr. Basketball award. Fishers went 24-1 last season and has won 83 of its past 86 games under the previous coaching staff, a run that included the 2024 Class 4A state title and a 2025 runner-up finish.
Continuity at the top, combined with two of the state’s best returning underclassmen, makes Fishers the clearest early favorite in Class 4A heading into 2026-27.
Programs to Watch
New Albany reached the 2026 semi-state before falling to Mt. Vernon, giving the program postseason experience to build on. Warren Central and North Central both finished the 2025-26 season ranked among the state’s top 25 by the Sagarin computer ratings and return as programs capable of contending in the Metropolitan Conference gauntlet, which added Carmel and Center Grove back to its ranks for 2026-27 after both schools spent recent seasons as independents. Ben Davis, a Class 4A finalist in each of the past two seasons before Mt. Vernon’s breakthrough, remains a program that can’t be counted out of the sectional and regional conversation regardless of turnover.
Why This Indiana Class 4A Basketball Preseason Preview 2026-27 Comes with a Caveat
Unlike a typical preseason ranking built on a settled picture, this year’s race is unusually open at the very top. Both title-game participants are replacing their best players.
No clear preseason No. 1 has emerged in early recruiting and All-Star coverage. Several contenders — including Fishers — won’t tip off until non-conference schedules are finalized in the coming weeks. We’ll publish the full ranked Class 4A Top 20 once fall practices begin and more teams’ rosters, transfers, and schedules are locked in.
That’s the honest state of this Indiana Class 4A basketball preseason preview 2026-27: a genuinely open race, not a settled one — which, for a state that treats March as sacred, might be the most Hoosier storyline of all.
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