Harrell, Booker win Indiana basketball citizenship award

Evan Harrell and Komari Booker were honored for more than what they did on the floor. The Carmel forward and Pike standout won the 2026 Wooden/MCL Citizenship Award, the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association’s way of putting a spotlight on seniors whose basketball careers were matched by leadership, service and conduct.

The award landed in the middle of Indiana All-Star Week, with the honors tied to the June 6 senior doubleheader at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Wooden Citizenship awards have now been presented for 35 years, and MCL Restaurant & Bakery has sponsored all 35, giving the recognition a rare kind of staying power in a state that measures players by both points and presence. The boys’ All-Stars were in the 88th year of the program, while the girls’ All-Stars were in the 51st.

Harrell’s resume fit the award as cleanly as any senior in the state. The 6-foot-8 forward finished his Carmel career with 789 points, 411 rebounds and 95 assists in 67 games, and his senior season helped push the Greyhounds to an 18-6 record and a Class 4A sectional championship. He averaged 15.6 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.8 assists, production that came with recognition as a 2026 IBCA Senior Supreme 15 selection and a 2026 AP high honorable mention all-state pick. Harrell also earned 2025 IBCA Underclass Large School All-State and 2024 IBCA Underclass honorable mention honors, then added a Carmel CLASS Award in fall 2024 for classroom achievement, positive behavior, improvement and effort. His work reached beyond the gym, too: he volunteered with Sam’s Wish, the Merciful HELP Center and served as a teen minister at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis. Harrell is headed to Bellarmine University to major in finance.

Booker gave Pike a different kind of title chase, and her numbers explain why she stayed in the statewide conversation. The 6-1 forward averaged 8.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.1 assists and 1.0 steals this season while helping Pike to a 24-2 record and a Class 4A sectional title. Over four seasons, she piled up 788 points, 662 rebounds, 108 assists and 144 steals in 88 games, with her rebound total ranking sixth on Pike’s all-time list. Booker was a two-time IBCA Large School All-State selection, a two-time AP high honorable mention choice, a three-time first-team Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference player and a three-time first-team all-Marion County selection. She also volunteered through Mt. Vernon Community Missionary Baptist Church with the Mozell Sanders Foundation and Feed The Hungry program. Booker is a Northern Illinois University recruit.

Indiana All-Star games director Mike Broughton called Harrell and Booker “great representatives” for the 2026 award and pointed to what they meant on and off the court. The honor carried extra weight because it sits in John Wooden’s shadow, and in Indiana that still matters: the Martinsville native led his high school to three state championship games, won the 1927 title, became a three-time All-American at Purdue and later built a 10-title run at UCLA.