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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A No. 1 ranking is nice to have, but Indianapolis Ben Davis has proven it's not a requisite for doing well in the tournament.
The Giants were unranked last season when they won their second straight Indiana high school boys championship. But as the new season is about to get underway, the Giants are picked No. 1 by The Associated Press.
The Giants were voted No. 1 on Monday in the AP poll of sports writers and broadcasters from throughout the state. Defending girls champion Center Grove was the preseason favorite in a separate poll of coaches.
Ben Davis received seven of 12 first-place votes and 225 of a possible 240 rating points from the AP media panel.
New Albany, which was ranked 12th at the end of last season and lost in double-overtime to Ben Davis in the championship game, was second in preseason balloting. Anderson was picked third and Merrillville was voted fourth.
New Albany did not receive any first-place votes but earned 169 rating points. Anderson had two votes for No. 1 and 154 points and Merrillville had one first-place vote and 135 points.
Muncie South, which went into the tourney ranked No. 1 but lost to Anderson, was picked fifth in the preseason poll with 127 points, three points ahead of Terre Haute South.
Jeffersonville was picked seventh; Kokomo, which was ranked second last year before a semistate loss to Fort Wayne Dwenger, was voted eighth; Jennings County, which beat Jeffersonville in the tourney, was picked ninth; and DeKalb, which also lost to Dwenger, was voted 10th, the same ranking it held last year.
The only other first-place votes went to Bedford North Lawrence, which was voted 13th, and Indianapolis North Central, picked 15th.
Elsewhere, Madison-Grant was voted 11th, Vincennes 12th, Frankfort 14th, Batesville 16th, Warsaw 17th, Logansport 18th, Andrean 19th and Lafayette Jeff 20th.
In the girls poll, Center Grove was followed by Leo, Lake Central, Perry Meridian, Connersville and Huntington North, the No. 1 team last year.
The panel of coaches picked Washington seventh, followed by Plainfield, Martinsville, McCutcheon, Valparaiso, Kokomo, New Albany, NorthWood, Jeffersonville, Richmond, Brownstown, Jennings County, Homestead and Terre Haute South.
