Since 1939, one senior has walked away from Indiana high school basketball season carrying a title no other state can match. Indiana Mr. Basketball winners aren’t just local legends — the award is the oldest of its kind in the country, predating every other state’s version by more than a decade. George Crowe won the first one at Franklin High School. Eighty-seven players have won it since.
Tracking down every single one of those 87 names would fill a book, not an article — and honestly, plenty of them are known best by their hometowns, not the wider state. What follows instead is a tour through the eras: the winners who defined a decade, went on to national fame, or still shape Indiana basketball today. Consider it the highlight reel of Indiana Mr. Basketball winners, not the full box score.
Indiana Mr. Basketball Winners of the Founders’ Era: 1939-1950s
George Crowe (1939, Franklin) never played in the NBA — he went a different direction entirely, becoming a two-time MLB All-Star first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Braves in the 1950s. He remains the answer to one of the great trivia questions in Indiana sports: the state’s first Mr. Basketball became a big-league All-Star in a completely different sport.
Bill Garrett (1947, Shelbyville) carries a legacy that stretches well past basketball itself. After winning Mr. Basketball and leading Shelbyville to a state title, Garrett became the first Black player to start for a Big Ten basketball team at Indiana University — a barrier-breaking moment that predates Jackie Robinson’s MLB debut by less than a year and helped push Big Ten basketball toward integration.
Oscar Robertson (1956, Indianapolis Crispus Attucks) is the name casual fans actually recognize from this early era. The “Big O” went on to a Hall of Fame NBA career with the Cincinnati Royals and Milwaukee Bucks, won an NBA championship, and remains one of only a handful of players in league history to average a triple-double for a full season. He’s now in his 90s and remains one of the most honored figures in Indiana basketball history — Crispus Attucks retired his number decades ago, and his 1955-56 undefeated state title team is still discussed as one of the greatest in Indiana history.
The Small-School Legends: 1950s-60s
Bobby Plump (1954, Milan) is the answer to a question every Hoosier already knows: he’s the real player behind the “Hoosiers” movie, hitting the winning shot for tiny Milan High School’s improbable 1954 state championship over Muncie Central. Plump still lives in the Indianapolis area and has spent decades as a public speaker and businessman, closely tied to the Milan ’54 legacy and the annual pilgrimage fans make to the town’s basketball museum.
Jimmy Rayl (1959, Kokomo) set a Hoosiers single-game scoring record at Indiana University — 56 points, twice — and remains a folk hero in Kokomo, where a third Mr. Basketball winner, Flory Bidunga, joined him and Tom Schwartz on the town’s short list decades later.
The Modern Superstar Era: 1980s-90s
Steve Alford (1983, New Castle) became Indiana University’s all-time leading scorer and led the Hoosiers to the 1987 national championship under Bob Knight. He went on to a long career as a college head coach, most recently leading programs at UCLA and Nevada before taking over at the University of Georgia’s men’s program.
Damon Bailey (1990, Bedford North Lawrence) is arguably the most mythologized Mr. Basketball winner of them all — Bob Knight famously scouted him as an eighth-grader, and Bailey became a genuine statewide folk hero before he ever set foot on IU’s campus. After his playing career wound down in the mid-1990s, Bailey built a business career in real estate and continues to run basketball camps across Indiana, staying closely connected to the same youth basketball culture that made him famous.
The NBA Pipeline Years: 2000s
The 2000s produced some of the most recognizable Indiana Mr. Basketball winners in the award’s history, a run of players who turned high school stardom into lasting professional careers.
Jared Jeffries (2000, Bloomington North) went on to a 12-year NBA career, including two seasons with the New York Knicks and stops with the Houston Rockets and Portland Trail Blazers, before transitioning into coaching and front-office work after retirement.
Eric Gordon (2007, North Central) parlayed his Mr. Basketball season into one standout freshman year at Indiana University before turning pro. Gordon has carved out one of the longest careers of any Indiana Mr. Basketball winner in modern NBA history, now in his late 30s and still playing — most recently signing with the Philadelphia 76ers.
The Recent Names: 2010s-Present
The most recent Indiana Mr. Basketball winners show the award hasn’t lost any of its statewide pull, even as recruiting and college basketball itself have changed dramatically since George Crowe’s era.
Cody Zeller (2011, Washington) started a run of Indiana University commitments and went on to a lengthy NBA career as a rotation big man, including stints with the Charlotte Hornets, Portland, and other teams across a decade-plus in the league.
Trayce Jackson-Davis (2019, Center Grove) took the long college route — four full seasons at Indiana University — before getting drafted by the Golden State Warriors in 2023. He’s since been traded to the Toronto Raptors, who exercised his team option for the 2026-27 season, keeping him in the league heading into what will be his fourth NBA year.
Flory Bidunga (2024, Kokomo) became the third Mr. Basketball winner from Kokomo, joining Tom Schwartz and Jimmy Rayl on that short, storied list, before heading off to continue his career at the college level.
Braylon Mullins (2025, Greenfield-Central) is the most recent name on the list, capping a run of Mr. Basketball winners that stretches back nearly nine decades to George Crowe’s first win in 1939.
Why the List Still Matters
What ties all of these names together isn’t the NBA or college success stories — plenty of Indiana Mr. Basketball winners never sniffed a pro career at all. It’s that the award has, for 87 years running, captured a genuine snapshot of who Indiana basketball fans believed was the best senior in the state at that exact moment. Some picks aged into legends. Others became footnotes. Either way, the full list remains the closest thing Indiana high school basketball has to its own hall of fame roll call — one this site will keep adding to every spring when the next name gets announced.
