The season’s done, campaigning is complete and the votes have been cast. That’s right, folks. It’s almost time to crown the 2025 IndyStar Indiana Miss Basketball. I have no idea who it will be and, as a reminder, had literally no involvement in the process beyond the single (1) vote I cast Tuesday. (I know there will still be knuckleheads who yell at me/IndyStar about it, but at least you — someone who is decidedly not a knucklehead — will know better.) 

As we await the final results, let’s evaluate the field. (Have your say in poll at bottom of article.)

Indiana All-Stars predictions: Picking state’s best seniors is never easy

The frontrunners

Addi Baxter, Columbia City

Baxter capped her decorated career by leading Columbia City to its first sectional and regional titles since 1999-2000. The Butler-bound guard averaged 24 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 5.3 steals for the semistate runner-up Eagles, who finished the season 24-5. Baxter holds the school records for career points (1,859), assists (523), steals (478) and field goals made, plus season records for field goals, points, assists and steals.

More: ‘She’s been told she’s not good enough at basketball her entire life.’ Now, she’s a budding star.

Jaylah Lampley, Lawrence Central

The record-setting Mississippi State commit led the Bears to new heights during her four seasons, collecting 81 wins and the first state championship in school history (2023-24). Individually, she set the school scoring record with 1,802 points, and rounded out her line with 580 rebounds, 209 steals, 201 assists and 52 blocks. Lampley enjoyed a career year as a senior, averaging 21.2 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.4 steals and 1.6 steals over 24 games.

Maya Makalusky, Hamilton Southeastern

The sharpshooting Makalusky led the Royals to their first sectional and regional championships since 2018-19, then nearly led them to a semistate crown, totaling 37 points, eight rebounds, four assists and five steals against Valparaiso and Warsaw. The IU commit finished the season averaging 22.1 points and 6.9 rebounds, and is the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,933 points.

Sectional 8 wrap: Maya Makalusky shares win with sister; Westfield seniors say goodbye

Kira Reynolds, South Bend Washington

Reynolds is immortalized among the state’s greatest shot blockers of all time. The 6-3 forward totaled 170 as a senior (6.5 per game), leaving her with 593 for her career. She also averaged 14.8 points on 52% shooting, 13.4 rebounds (4.9 offensive), 6.0 assists and 3.5 steals for the sectional champion Panthers. The Purdue-bound standout finished her career with 1,444 points (57% shooter), 1,184 rebounds, 380 assists and 221 steals.

Meredith Tippner, Noblesville

Tippner’s athletic exploits include a state basketball title her freshman year, three consecutive state soccer championships and a 155-25-6 cumulative record between the two sports. She set the single-season scoring record as a senior, pouring in 623 points (26 ppg) against the state’s ninth-toughest schedule. The Miami commit also averaged 9.9 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 4.0 steals this season, and finished her career ranked second all-time in points (1,779), rebounds (913) and assists (337), and with a school-record 326 steals.

The contenders/dark horses

It would not surprise me to see either player among the finalists.

Hadley Crosier, Lanesville

Crosier, a Maryville (Mo.) commit, underwent ACL reconstruction surgery on March 1, 2024. She worked tirelessly over the summer and returned in time for the start of her senior season on Nov. 14. A two-time Class A state champion, Crosier led the Eagles to their seventh consecutive sectional championship as a senior, averaging 17 points, 3.5 assists and 4.3 steals. She finished her career with 1,378 points (second all-time) and school records for steals (423), assists (402) and 3-pointers (119), plus a record of 104-9.

More: She wasn’t going to let ACL tear derail her senior season or shot at IHSAA hoops 3-peat.

Avery Gordon, Brownsburg 

The Purdue-bound Gordon finished her career second on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,626 points, to go with 816 rebounds and 227 blocks. She was a wickedly efficient scorer throughout her career (56%), and finished out her four-year career with a stellar senior campaign, setting career-highs in points (20.3 per game), rebounds (10.3 per game), blocks (80 total) and double-doubles (14).

Have your say: Who should win 2025 IndyStar Miss Basketball?

Follow Brian Haenchen on Twitter at @Brian_Haenchen.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana’s baseball team entered Big Ten play last Friday hoping for a fresh start after an uneven start in its early nonconference games that had the Hoosiers one game under .500.

What the Hoosiers got instead in its weekend series at Penn State was more of the same problems.

The Nittany Lions took two out of three games from the Hoosiers in State College. Pa. A Friday doubleheader was split. Penn State won the opener 15-9 with Indiana winning the nightcap 17-6 in eight inning. Penn State took the series with a 10-6 victory on Sunday.

In Friday’s opener, Indiana led 3-1, but a six-run third inning proved decisive for the Nittany Lions. Indiana starting pitcher Gavin Seebold have up nine earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings of work. Indiana lost despite home runs from Devin Taylor, Hogan Denny and TJ Schuyler.

In the second game, Indiana scored at least two runs in all but one of the first five innings. The top three spots in the batting order – Andrew Wiggins, Taylor and Korbyn Dickerson – combined to got 7 for 15 at the plate with a home run (Dickerson) and four RBI. Third baseman Cooper Malamazian went 4-for-5 at the bottom of the order. (Malamazian was later named Big Ten Player of the Week.)

Indiana led Sunday’s game 2-0 until Penn State surged ahead starting in the fifth inning. Two runs were scored in fifth, one in the sixth, three in the seventh and four runs in the eighth inning as Penn State led 10-3 at the end of it. The Hoosiers had three errors – two of them in the outfield – and the Indiana bullpen gave up all seven earned runs.

It was Indiana’s first series loss to Penn State since 2008.

What has plagued the Hoosiers (7-9, 1-2) so far? Indiana’s pitching continues to be a problem. As of Monday, the Hoosiers ranked 14th in the Big Ten with a 6.44 ERA. Opponents are hitting .264 against Indiana and averaging 4.6 walks per game against Indiana’s staff.

Indiana’s defense has been uneven. The Hoosiers have 23 errors in 16 games and they rank 223rd in the NCAA in fielding percentage at .959. Indiana had three errors in Sunday’s loss to Penn State.

On the positive side, Indiana was expected to hit well and has. Dickerson (.380, 8 HR, 27 RBI), Taylor (.382, 6 HR, 21 RBI) and Jake Hanley (.394, 0 HR, 10 RBI) are 2-3-4 in the Big Ten in base hits. Dickerson is third in the Big Ten with eight home runs and 27 RBI. Malamazian is tied for fourth in the Big Ten with a .440 batting average.

The Hoosiers have been patient at the plate and lead the Big Ten in walks with 119 – 20 more than any other school. Indiana is third in the Big Ten in batting average (.321), home runs (24) and runs scored (150).

There’s a long way to go in the season, but Indiana has a lot of work to do to put itself in NCAA Tournament consideration. At present, Indiana is ranked No. 121 in RPI with a 1-5 record in Quad 1-2 games.

Indiana goes back to work on Tuesday as it travels to Indiana State for its annual round robin series with the Sycamores. Indiana State is also 7-9.

Indiana will then host its first home Big Ten series of the season as Ohio State comes to Bart Kaufman Field on Friday for a three-game series. Expect runs – Ohio State (4-9) has a team ERA of 8.68.

The logic is simple: If you can’t win on policy or public support, you try to win with semantics and confusion.

Even by government standards, Medicaid is notoriously complex — an intricate web of carve-outs, cross-subsidies, and shared state-federal financial responsibilities. I once heard the funding structure of a particular Indiana Medicaid program described as “a house of cards built on top of a shell game,” which feels like a fair description of Medicaid as a whole.

At the same time, Medicaid — especially Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as Obamacare) — is widely popular. This puts conservatives seeking to cut the program in a bind: They must find a way to undermine it without directly attacking something voters support. The program’s bureaucratic complexity provides that opening.

President Trump and congressional Republicans have ruled out major structural changes to Medicaid, instead focusing on cutting more arcane and opaque features of the program, such as eliminating states’ ability to use provider taxes.

Hicks: Indiana’s startling Medicaid math forces unpleasant choices

Provider taxes are levies imposed by states on health care providers to help cover Medicaid expansion costs. They are critical to funding Medicaid expansion in many states, including Indiana. The ability to impose these taxes is essential for maintaining state support of Medicaid expansion. To justify eliminating these arrangements, opponents have labeled them as waste, fraud or abuse, using loaded phrases like “money laundering” or “bribery.”

It is fair to critique provider taxes as bad public policy, that they are overly complex and/or create significant disincentives for fiscal restraint. However, these mechanisms are a legitimate exercise of state taxation power on actual commerce within state borders, not a nefarious backroom scheme to defraud taxpayers.

This push to end provider taxes is a prime example of using bureaucratic complexity as a smokescreen for deep cuts to the program. By framing it as a technical adjustment that merely enhances efficiency, rather than a direct funding reduction, Congress can obscure the real impact: jeopardizing Medicaid expansion and restricting access to care for millions of Americans.

The logic is simple: If you can’t win on policy or public support, you try to win with semantics and confusion.

Healthy Indiana Plan could reduce care for hundreds of thousands

Indiana’s version of the provider tax, the Hospital Assessment Fee, plays a crucial role in funding Medicaid by generating federal matching funds. This money is essential for maintaining hospital reimbursement rates and supporting the Healthy Indiana Plan, the state’s Medicaid expansion program under Obamacare. The HAF allows Indiana to sustain and expand access to care without relying entirely on state general fund dollars.

The HAF generates over $1 billion annually, bringing in additional federal money that hospitals rely on to care for Medicaid patients. With state lawmakers already concerned about rising Medicaid costs, finding an additional $1 billion to sustain HIP could be an insurmountable challenge.

Eliminating the provider tax may sound like a mild technocratic tweak, but in reality, it would gut Medicaid expansion, destabilize hospital finances, and reduce access to care for hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers. By branding these changes as a crackdown on “waste,” politicians can claim to be protecting taxpayers while sidestepping responsibility for the millions who could lose health care access.

A major threat to addiction services

Over the past decade, Indiana has significantly expanded access to addiction treatment, including residential care, medication-assisted treatment and peer support, leading to one of the largest drops in overdose deaths nationwide.

The heroic Hoosier recovery community deserves the most credit for these wins, and HIP is the policy and programmatic foundation that makes it possible. Traditional Medicaid primarily covers the aged, blind, and disabled. Medicaid expansion programs (like HIP) extend coverage to a broader low-income population.

Most individuals with substance use disorder are both low-income and not classified as disabled, meaning they would have no access to care without Medicaid expansion. The elimination of the HAF — and the likely cuts to HIP that would follow — would reverse Indiana’s progress, severely undermining our fight against addiction.

It is reasonable to argue that addressing the national debt may require difficult choices, including potential limits on Medicaid spending (although that argument is severely undermined when accompanied by a deficit-exploding tax cut).

Likewise, a philosophical debate about the government’s role in health care or Medicaid expansion’s mixed track record on health outcomes is a legitimate discussion. But, if lawmakers want to debate Medicaid expansion, they should do so transparently, without disguising significant cuts as routine and harmless policy adjustments.

Jay Chaudhary is the former director of the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction and former chair of the Indiana Behavioral Health Commission.