Kyle Neddenriep | Indianapolis Star

Bloomington Herald-Times, Bloomington Herald-Times

What do you do when your senior basketball season is cut short, four wins from a potential storybook finish with an undefeated record and state championship?

Learn to play the guitar.

At least, that is what Anthony Leal has been up to since the coronavirus pandemic ended his high school season at Bloomington South — along with 63 other teams — going into the regional round last month. Leal, the 6-5 Indiana University recruit, is better known for strumming the nets from the 3-point line than guitar strings.

Provided photo

With the help of some YouTube “how to” videos, Leal recently completed his first full song. Nothing from Luke Combs, Eric Church or Thomas Rhett just yet, though he is working toward that goal.

“I can play ‘Happy Birthday,’” Leal said. “I haven’t played it for anyone yet, but I can play the full song.”

Count it as another achievement in a long list of them for Leal. And count this one, too: Leal is the 2020 IndyStar Mr. Basketball, following Jordan Hulls (2009) as the second winner from Bloomington South and the third consecutive Indiana recruit to win the award for the state’s top senior basketball player, following Romeo Langford of New Albany in 2018 and Trayce Jackson-Davis of Center Grove in 2019.

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Leal was named on 103 of the 236 ballots returned from the state’s coaches and media. Lawrence North’s Tony Perkins was second with 37 votes, followed by Culver Academy’s Trey Galloway with 33 votes, Gary 21st Johnell Davis with 22 and Lawrence Central’s Dre Davis with 15.

Leal finished his career at Bloomington South with a school-record 1,620 points. Like Hulls in 2009, his senior year scoring (18.2 points per game) could have been higher if he had played on a different team or chose to play a different way. But like that 2009 state champion Bloomington South team, this year’s team was the state’s last unbeaten squad at 26-0.

“(Bloomington South coach J.R. Holmes) always said that team success would lead to individual honors,” Leal said. “He was right about that. I always tried to put my teammates first because they made everything so much easier for me. I saw how much better they made me.”

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Photos: IU basketball recruit, Bloomington South guard Anthony Leal

The statistics show Leal made the most of his opportunities. He shot 59% from the field overall, including 37% from the 3-point line, and converted 76% of his free throws (90-for-119). Leal led the team in scoring and rebounding (4.0) and was second on the team to point guard and close friend Noah Jager in assists (2.8) and steals (2.2).

When Bloomington South needed a breakout game or a big shot, Leal was there. He scored 23 of his 28 points in the first half of a showdown at Class 3A top-ranked and defending champion Silver Creek on Feb. 1, knocking down the game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer of a 69-66 win. Several weeks earlier, on Dec. 21, it was Leal’s bank shot at the buzzer — off an assist from senior teammate James Bomba — that ended Floyd Central’s 31-game home winning streak with a 51-50 overtime win.

“You have to have a couple of those signature games (to win Mr. Basketball),” Holmes said. “Anthony is a kid who gave up scoring 25 or 30 points a game to make the team better. We had four double-figure scorers (Leal, Jager, junior Joey Bomba and junior Connor Hickman). For me as a coach, if Leal has a bad game, you have to be able to survive and have other kids step up. Anthony was a good team player. There were times this year I’d get on him about passing up shots I thought he should take.”

SCOUTING REPORT: Anthony Leal could fill major need for IU

Leal, the son of Martin and Sherry Leal, credits older sister Lauren as a role model. Lauren, a 2018 Bloomington South graduate, played on Anthony’s Bloomington Blaze travel teams at a young age. Lauren, now a sophomore at DePauw University, has battled back from multiple knee surgeries. He wears the No. 3 jersey because of Lauren.

“She’s the reason I love basketball,” Anthony said. “She’s always been the kind of player who never takes a play off on defense. Every time I take the floor, I know it could be my last game because I’ve seen with her how it can go in the blink of an eye.”

Martin Leal describes the relationship between Anthony and Lauren as a “special bond.”

“They are each other’s biggest supporters going back to when they played on the same team together as kids,” Martin said. “What she went through from an injury perspective, it was nice that she had somebody could lean on. They are close and I think they appreciate each other more and more all the time.”

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Photos: Indiana Mr. Basketball winners over the years

As the “hometown kid” committing to Indiana, there will be expectations for Leal that are different from other recruits. That becomes more pronounced with the title of “Mr. Basketball.” But Leal, who grew up around the IU program, attending games with his family, seems better equipped than most kids his age to handle the expectations.

For one, Holmes points to Leal’s work ethic.

“After his sophomore year, he was being recruited as a shooter,” Holmes said. “I told him, ‘You are going to have to do something different to be a scorer than just a shooter. He really lived in the weight room and became one of the leaders in there. He didn’t use AAU as an excuse not to do it. Then he started dunking the ball and getting to free-throw line a lot more and his defense got a lot better.”

Leal also understands more than most recruits possibly can what it means to be a part of the Indiana program. There will be more of a spotlight on him than there would be had he picked Stanford, his other finalist. The intensity of that pressure can be a surprise to some. But Leal, because of his proximity to the program and his easy-going and confident personality, seems ready for that challenge.

“From day one, I know I have come in and make my identity as a worker,” he said. “That’s my main goal is put in the time and effort and play as hard as I can. That is the best way I can make myself noticed.”

Bloomington South had a team equipped to make a run at a Class 4A state title. The Panthers were 26-0 going into the Seymour regional, where the Panthers would have had a rematch with Floyd Central in the regional semifinal with the winner playing either Evansville Reitz or Greenwood the night of March 14.

But the Indiana High School Athletic Association postponed the tournament on March 13 due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. The tournament was canceled entirely the following week when Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced all Indiana schools would be closed until May 1 (which later became the remainder of the academic year).

“I wouldn’t say I felt like we left anything on the court or took anything for granted,” Leal said. “Now you step back and look at it and there are 64 groups of seniors that can say they won their last game. But it’s also really sad because we felt like we had something special going. We had four more opportunities, hopefully. Sadly, we weren’t able to. But we were able to finish undefeated, which is pretty cool.”

Leal will soon move on to the next stage at IU, where he has been admitted to the Kelley School of Business. Under normal circumstances, he would be spending time this spring at Lake Monroe. “He enjoys the outdoors,” Sherry Leal said. “Even though he’s always practicing and playing AAU, when the summer comes he gets a nice tan.”

But there are other hobbies he can enjoy, like reading, riding his bicycle or lying in a hammock. He might even make a little more progress on that guitar.

“I’m no professional,” Leal said. “But I’m working on it.”