INDIANAPOLIS — 2012 Indiana basketball commit Yogi Ferrell saw his high school basketball career end in familiar fashion Saturday afternoon at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
Not only was the setting familiar, but his stat line was also a flashback to his sophomore and junior seasons.
Ferrell scored 17 points, grabbed nine rebounds and recorded two steals to go along with his state championship 12 assists in the Class 2A state championship.
Park Tudor downed Bowman Academy and DePaul commit DeJuan Marrero 79-57 to win their second straight title. The Panthers repeated on their third trip to the state championship in as many years.
Ferrell and teammate Trevon Blueitt came into Saturday’s contest with Bowman combining for 36.5 points-per-game, accounting for over half of Park Tudor’s game scoring on average.
Ferrell and Blueitt, a 2014 Indiana target, scored over 53 percent of the Panthers’ points on Saturday. Blueitt finished with 25 points, eight rebounds and two steals.
“That’s our game,” Ferrell said after the game. “We push the ball and got a lot of open shots. We did that tonight. We knew to just drive and kick.”
Michael Ford led Bowman Academy with 13 points.
Park Tudor head coach Ed Schilling’s 2-3 zone limited Marrero to 12 points and six rebounds.
The quality zone defense in addition to Park Tudor’s ability to handle full-court pressure from Bowman out of the gates helped the Panthers take a 40-21 lead into the locker room at halftime. From then on, the Panthers never looked back.
“We prepare to go against pressure (defense) from the first day of practice,” Schilling said. “When (Ferrell) was a little sophomore, we knew in order to win a championship, we’d have to be able to handle pressure and obviously when you have Yogi, it sure makes that more successful.”
Despite the heavy press from Bowman Academy, Park Tudor turned 15 Eagle turnovers into 21 points.
“It was one of those games where we couldn’t get anything accomplished,” Bowman Academy head coach Marvin Rea said. “Defensively and offensively we just came out flat. I think we got caught up in all the hype. We weren’t mentally focused and we got caught back on our heels.”
Schilling, a former assistant under current Kentucky head coach John Calipari, has delivered the Panthers to the state championship in each of his first three seasons as the head coach at Park Tudor.
“We’re just very grateful and humbled to be here again this year,” he said.
“More than anything, I’m just grateful to coach this group of seniors that we have and this team in general. They have truly been a joy to coach on the court and off the court. They’re as good as they get.”
[Photo by Rob Goebel via IndyStar]