Northridge's Brady Scholl Named South Bend Tribune Boys Basketball Player of the Year

Brady Scholl didn't just win the South Bend Tribune's 2025-26 Boys Basketball Player of the Year award — he built the kind of season that made the decision obvious.

The 6-foot-6 Northridge senior was announced as the Tribune's top honoree on March 30, capping a campaign in which he served as the engine behind one of the Raiders' best seasons in program history. Northridge won a regional title and made the program's first Final Four appearance in recent memory, milestones that tracked almost precisely with Scholl's statistical dominance.

The defining image of his senior year came in a sectional game, when Scholl put up 17 points, 17 rebounds and seven blocks in a single performance. Seven blocks in a high school playoff game is a number that forces attention. The Raiders advanced to the sectional final behind that effort, and it became the signature moment of a postseason run that northern Indiana hadn't seen from Northridge in some time.

What elevated Scholl beyond a stat-sheet novelty was his consistent two-way impact. Northridge leaned on his interior scoring and rim protection to control paint possession throughout the playoffs. Half-possession swings in tournament basketball are often the difference between a regional title and a first-round exit; Scholl's ability to clean the glass and alter opponents' shots at the rim gave the Raiders a consistent edge in exactly those moments.

His senior season also carried the weight of a comeback narrative. After what he described as a disappointing junior year, Scholl responded by elevating his game on both ends of the floor. That growth extended to a leadership role that shaped Northridge's defensive identity and helped younger teammates establish themselves on a team competing at a statewide level.

College programs and talent evaluators took notice. Scholl's combination of size, mobility and glass-timing drew recruiting attention, with highlight packages on Hudl and recruiting platforms helping contextualize what the box scores already showed. At 6-foot-6 with the kind of defensive footprint his block totals suggest, he profiles as the type of interior presence college programs hunt.

The Player of the Year selection reflects what happens when individual output and team results align. Northridge's Final Four run didn't happen without Scholl anchoring the paint, and those stat lines came in postseason settings where the margin for error vanishes entirely. That's what separates award-worthy seasons from good ones — and it's what Brady Scholl delivered in his final year as a Raider.