Hank Plona’s seven seasons as head coach at Indian Hills have resulted in nearly 200 victories and have ended six times with the Warriors qualifying for the NJCAA National Tournament. IHCC has also claimed seven consecutive ICCAC regular-season championships (tying for first in 2018-19), six postseason conference titles and four district championships. Plona is now second in all-time wins at Indian Hills (196-30), trailing only Terry Carroll (269-50), who coached from 1989-98.

A season ago, Plona’s Warriors were sitting at 14-5 in early January with an uncharacteristic four home losses before going on a late-season tear, winning 13 straight contests en route to taking the regular and post-season Region XI titles. In addition, IHCC earned an automatic bid to the NJCAA Tournament via a District Championship over Dawson (MT). The berth to Hutchinson, KS for the National Tournament was the schools’ 17th all-time. Unfortunately, the 7th-seeded Warriors fell to eventual National Champion Northwest Florida State by a single point in their opener, 65-64.

Indian Hills was able to boast two more NJCAA All- Americans a year ago in sophomores J’Vonne Hadley and Taj Anderson. Plona has coached ten All-Americans in his first seven years, along with 36 all-region performers. A total of 58 of his players have moved on from IHCC to Division I schools, and no less than 18 of those former Warriors are currently playing professionally around the globe. Notably, Plona has helped deliver several players to the highest level of NCAA Division I the past few seasons as Tomas Woldetensae landed with 2019-20 National Champion Virginia, while the following season, Tyon Grant-Foster was sought out by Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks. The past three seasons have seen three former Warriors join Power Five schools in Maurice Calloo (Oregon State), Chris Payton (Pittsburgh) and the aforementioned Hadley (Colorado).

Plona, a one-time IHCC assistant coach, was hired in April 2015 to become the ninth head basketball coach on the IHCC Ottumwa campus. In addition to winning at an overall clip of nearly 87 percent over the past seven seasons, Plona’s mark at home now stands at 125-11 (91.9%) at the Hellyer Center. His overall record against league foes is 67-8.

All seven of Plona’s squads have averaged over 81 points per contest, with two of Plona’s IHCC teams averaging over 90 points a game, including a 95.7 scoring average his initial season.

Plona arguably did his best coaching job during the unique challenges that the Coronavirus pandemic presented in 2020- 21. The Warriors parlayed a four, and sometimes five-guard attack into regular and postseason Region XI championships and a 21-3 record. Despite climbing to a No. 6-rating in the final poll of the season, IHCC was surprisingly left out of the NJCAA Tournament after falling by a single point in the District title game. The Warriors were again ranked in every national poll a season ago, and now have been rated in 82-of-83 NJCAA Division I polls since Plona took over as head coach. The Warriors will begin the 2022-23 campaign with a preseason No. 3 rating.

Plona’s 2019-20 Warrior unit was Plona’s best defensively as IHCC surrendered an average of just 64 points per game on their way to what was the school’s seventh straight national berth at that time. That squad went 30-3 and captured the No. 2-seed at Hutchinson.

In the 2018-19 season, Indian Hills finished 27-7 and was 7-1 in league play. They split two games at the NJCAA National Tournament. The Warriors tied for the regular-season ICCAC crown and averaged just a shade under 90 points a game.

The Warriors had an undefeated regular season in 2017-18 and were ranked No. 1 in the country the final three national polls. They captured the conference regular-season and postseason titles and won the district championship game against North Dakota State College of Science to qualify for the national tourney where they were the top seed. IHCC lost a heartbreaking overtime game to Barton (KS) at Hutch.

Indian Hills had 29-5 records in each of Plona’s first two seasons in charge of the program, and his first squad, in 2015-16, had 12 players move on to four-year schools.

Plona brought championship experience to Indian Hills when he took over as head coach after a very successful stint at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas, where he was an assistant for Hall of Fame coach Steve Green. South Plains made three national tournament appearances in Plona’s four years at SPC, winning the national title in 2012 with an undefeated record and losing in overtime in the championship game of the 2015 tourney.

The Texans were 116-21 during Plona’s time on the sidelines and two of the losses, both by a point, came in head-to-head matchups with Indian Hills, one in the national tournament and the other at the Hellyer Center.

Plona joined the IHCC staff as an assistant coach for the 2010-11 season, a year when the Warriors finished 23-10. Before arriving at Indian Hills for his first stint, he spent a year as an assistant at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.

The alumnus of Providence College served as an undergraduate student manager and a graduate assistant coach under Keno Davis while at PC. He earned a bachelor’s degree and later added a master’s of business administration degree from the Rhode Island school.