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Scott not taking All-Star opportunity lightly

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TIPTON - For better and worse, Bryson Scott knows only one way.
And so in all-star basketball Wednesday night at Tipton High School, in the Indiana All-Stars' 133-111 win over their junior counterparts, in a setting where casualness so often takes hold, there was the Purdue signee, ripping basketballs away from opposing big men, drawing hard fouls, diving for loose balls and attacking the offensive boards with reckless abandon.
"Bryson's the ultimate competitor," Scott's former high school coach, Barak Coolman, said. "It doesn't matter what it is, if he steps foot on the floor, it's a basketball game. It doesn't matter if it's the back yard, practice, an all-star game or a real game. He's going to compete and as long as he's out there, he's going full speed."
Playing an exhibition game as if it were Game 7, the guard from Fort Wayne didn't lead the Indiana All-Stars in scoring like he did Monday night in Sullivan, but he wasn't far off.
After scoring 19 points in 17 minutes Monday, Scott went for 17 at Tipton, with a team-high eight rebounds - five of them off the offensive glass, one in which he missed a free throw, then simply wrestled the rebound away from junior big man Mack Mercer - along with four assists and two steals, with just one turnover.
Scott said the Indiana All-Star experience has been important to him and has played like it.
"I'm not going to take any breaks, because this is kind of one of my dreams," Scott said. "I'm going to come out and play hard and do what I need to do, be aggressive, and do what I can.
"I'm just trying to make the most of the opportunity."
Scott attacked the basket often Wednesday night with the same zeal he attacked the boards, but he also made jump shots, draining a three-pointer and a pull-up jumper in finishing 6-of-15 from the field.
As a facilitator, he engineered two of his team's highlights, the first setting up V.J. Beachem with a behind-the-back pass in transition and the second coming when he drove and drew an extra defender, then dished to current and future teammate Basil Smotherman for a two-handed dunk.
Whereas Scott put up numbers in an all-star setting more conducive to guards getting theirs, Smotherman was as efficient as can be and a contributor in different facets, including in spurts as the All-Stars' 5 man when Darius Latham was off the floor.
(The seniors didn't have Devin Davis Wednesday night, due to a troublesome blister on the IU signee's foot.)
Smotherman made every shot that was there between the two scrimmages, finishing 5-of-5 between the two games. Wednesday night, he was 3-for-3 for six points, with six rebounds and two assists.
"I just have to do the little stuff," Smotherman said. "That's what Coach (Scott) Heady has said, that I might not get the touches I might want, but I'm needed to make shots when they're there and make little plays."
In the two all-star scrimmages, Smotherman was exactly what he'll be needed to be at the next level.
"In college, you're not going to be the next LeBron James out there," Smotherman said. "You have to build up to it and just do little things. That's what Coach (Matt) Painter's told me and what Bryson and I have been talking about this whole week."
Zak Irvin led the seniors with 21 points, dropping a series of early threes to put the Indiana All-Stars out front early. Beachem scored 18.
The juniors - playing without stars Trey Lyles and JaQuan Lyle - were led by James Blackmon's 26 points.
The Indiana All-Stars play their annual double-header with Kentucky this weekend.
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