SOUTH WHITLEY – Whitko High School senior Logan Irwin is approaching a club reserved for exclusive Indiana high school boys basketball players. Going into tonight’s game at Southwood, Irwin sits at 1,868 points, leaving him just 132 points away from being the 41st player in Indiana boys basketball history to score 2,000 career points. Averaging 31.2 points per game this season, Irwin’s really been climbing the scoring chart recently. Following a Dec. 22 loss at Plymouth (69-44), the Stetson University-bound Irwin scored 34 in a win at Peru, 34 in a holiday tournament win against LaVille, 37 in a Three Rivers Conference win at Rochester and another 35 in a 72-62 loss to Class 3A No. 3 Lebanon Saturday. In the loss to Lebanon, Irwin impressed his father/coach, who eventually had to take a seat and just watch as his son took over. “What gets to you, is you think he can’t get any better, but he does,” Rob Irwin said. “This past month has been the best I’ve seen him play and lead. He’s shown moves that make you say, ‘wow’. “He’s starting to give you three or four ‘wow’ plays a game,” he added. “He’s showing that he’s more than a grinder. He’s showing the moves the elite guys make.” Along with the ‘wow’ moves against Lebanon, Logan also made six three-pointers in the loss, but that hasn’t been unusual this season. Working on his jump shot during the offseason, Logan is connecting on 53.6 percent of his three-point shots this season, which is just below his 54.5 percent shooting average inside the arc. “What he’s been working on the hardest has been the three, and it’s paying off,” Rob Irwin said. Logan’s jumper began to come along during his junior season, but early on, he was a penetrator who attacked the rim, which resulted in numerous trips to the free-throw line. As a result, he owns the Whitko school record for made and attempted free throws, as well as the school mark in assists, steals and points. Prior to having the 2,000-point mark within his grasp, it was 1991-graduate Steve Nicodemus’ school record of 1,474 points that stood in his way. However, before even thinking about setting any scoring marks when he came to Whitko as an eighth grader from the Warsaw school system, Logan was more of a conventional point guard. “(At Warsaw) he had Lucas Grose and Jordyn Coon on his team, so he already had scorers on the team, but he’d still score a little,” Rob Irwin said about his son." "In middle school, I scored but I didn’t really need to because I was playing with Lucas Grose,” Logan said. Once he began attending Whitko Middle School, his scoring load began to become heavier, but once he entered high school, he once again began deferring to teammates. “I actually had to get on him because he wouldn’t shoot,” Rob Irwin said. During his freshman season, Logan did manage to net 450 points and helped his team reach the Class 3A regional championship game at Blackford High School in Hartford City. “My freshman year, scoring was a little easier because we had so many options on that team,” Logan said. His freshman season produced Whitko’s best postseason runs in his three-plus years at Whitko, something that hasn’t sat well with Logan. “I’d rather have team success than individual records,” Logan said. “I want to return to winning sectional titles and get a regional championship.” With the graduation of Zac VanDeWater, who scored 1,040 during his four years at Whitko, the need for Logan to score has increased this season, as the Wildcats got off to a 1-5 start, before winning three of their last four. “Before, I had Zac on the team, but this year, I know I have to score when I can,” Logan said about this season, which also saw three-year player Derek Snep opt not to play, as well as a season-ending injury to guard Lucky Winters in the preseason. Because his lowest point total in a game has been 20 against Columbia City and Plymouth, Whitko will most likely always be led in scoring by Logan, but the totals are becoming a little more balanced now. “Gabe Powell is really beginning to find out where to be when I penetrate, and he knows I’ll get him the ball,” Logan said. “It’s about confidence.” And confidence in himself has gotten Logan to a point where he’s passing legends on the scoring chart, such as Oscar Robertson (1,825) and Scott Skiles (1,788), and has him just five points behind Greg Oden (1,873) and nine from Eric Montross (1,874). Warsaw graduate Kevin Ault’s mark of 2,028 points may also fall to Logan, but it’s another number that caught Logan’s attention when looking at the list of Indiana’s all-time leading scorers. “Steve Alford is up there,” Logan said about the former Indiana Hoosiers star, who scored 2,116 points while at New Castle. “I want to get that.” The thought of passing one of Indiana’s favorite sons on a high school scoring list would have seemed remote to Logan when he entered Whitko High School. “When I scored 1,000, we didn’t even realize it,” he said. “It didn’t hit me for a couple days later, and now the goal is 2,000.” With 11 more games guaranteed to him, and averaging over 30 a game, the 2,000-mark seems inevitable, it’s just a matter of how many memorable players he can surpass along the way.
