Kentucky All-Stars basketball rosters named for boys and girls

Both Mr. and Miss Basketball, a state champion and the most prolific scorer in Kentucky high school history are on this year’s boys’ and girls’ rosters for the Kentucky All-Stars.

The teams’ annual games against the Indiana All-Stars will be played on Saturday, June 11 at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis and Sunday, June 12 at Bellarmine University in Louisville. The girls’ game in Louisville will begin at 1 p.m. with the boys’ game to start 30 minutes after the conclusion of the girls’ game. Tickets are $12 and can be ordered in advance at bit.ly/1S5OZLm.

Carson Williams of Owen County and Erin Boley of Elizabethtown, Mr. and Miss Basketball, will play for their respective teams. Boys’ state champion Paul Laurence Dunbar is represented by Darius Williams. Whitney Creech, who this season became the first player in state history to reach 5,000 points for a career, will play for the Kentucky girls.

Henry Clay’s Isaiah “Pun” Tisdale and Franklin County’s Malaka Frank, each an 11th Region Player of the Year, will also represent Kentucky. Emma Young, the 12th Region girls’ player of the year, is also on the Kentucky roster. Thirteen players were selected to each team.

The Kentucky boys, who haven’t won a game in the annual series since 2008, will be coached by former Tates Creek coach Wayne Breeden. He says he thinks he has a versatile group that can adapt quickly to an All-Star setting. “We have some guys who can play at the point and on the wing,” he said. “We have some guys who can drive” along with excellent shooters and some “true face-up forwards.”

Breeden plans to tell his players that “now they’re not somebody who has to do it all.” He thinks they’ll embrace what it means to wear “Kentucky” across their chests and hopes basketball fans in the state will turn out come June. Only 785 people showed up for last year’s competitive game, which saw Kentucky use a 16-2 run to climb back and have a go-ahead shot fall short in the final seconds of an 83-80 finish. “We have to get back to taking pride in this on the Kentucky side,” Breeden said.

Snapping the 15-game losing streak in the series would likely help attendance. What does Kentucky have to do to beat Indiana?

“We gotta score more points than they do,” Breeden said with a laugh.

Muhlenberg County’s Mike Harper will coach the girls’ team.

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 10:21 AM with the headline "Kentucky All-Stars basketball rosters named for boys and girls."