Ottumwa -- Indian Hills head coach Hank Plona and three of his players will take part in this weekend's JA45 basketball showcase in Florida. Joining Plona will be IHCC's Tyon Grant-Foster, Malique Jacobs and Jacob Jackson, some of the top junior college players in the country. All three will be sophomores on the 2019-20 Warrior squad.
Plona will coach one of the six teams that will compete in the two-day, six-game event. It's the second year in a row that the Indian Hills coach was selected to participate. The games will be played at Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne, Florida.
The 6'7" Grant-Foster averaged 8.2 points and 4.4 rebounds a game for the Warriors as a freshman. He scored a season-high 25 points against Florida SouthWestern State in the national tournament in March.
Jacobs, a 6'2" guard, transferred to Indian Hills from Hutchinson CC where he averaged 10.7 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.9 assists for a team that was 26-8 last year.
Jackson, also a transfer from Otero JC in Colorado, is a 6'6" guard/forward who scored 11.8 points a game, grabbed 4.3 rebounds and dished out 3.1 assists as a freshman.
Indian Hills rising sophomore center JD Muila was also invited to play in the JA45, but is still sidelined after having offseason knee surgery.
There will be three games on Thursday and three more Friday in what Eastern Florida coach Jeremy Shulman bills "the premier junior college All-American event in the entire country."