Herald-Times Girls Basketball Preseason Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Herald-Times preseason award is and who runs it

This award turns a preseason question over to readers. The Herald-Times, an Indiana newspaper whose own web address is heraldtimesonline.com, lets its audience decide which high school girls basketball player enters the winter season holding the Preseason Player of the Year title, rather than settling the matter with a panel of writers.

Where the paper's weekly recognition program rotates through a new honoree every seven days, this ballot is a single preseason decision with one winner. The paper places the decision on Crowdsignal, whose poll.fm host carries many Indiana school ballots, and the voting address for this award is https://poll.fm/14607046.

Nominees on the most recent edition came from area high schools in Indiana, with Edgewood and Owen Valley among the schools represented. Each nominee is listed beside her school on the ballot, which keeps the choice readable for supporters who follow one program all season.

The dated record: editions, the November window and what is unpublished

Confirmed editions of the Herald-Times girls basketball Preseason Player of the Year ran in 2022 and 2024. Both windows fell in November, which fits the preseason framing: the paper settles the question before the Indiana high school season tips off, not after it.

The 2024 ballot produced the clearest numbers on file. It closed with a leading total of 8,050 votes, a 47 percent share of all votes cast, and the runner-up finished on 5,456 votes. Those totals make this one of the heavier high school polls of its kind in the state and show that the paper's readership actually turns out for the question.

What the paper has not printed is the exact opening and closing date of its November ballot; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The next edition year is equally unannounced, with no 2026 poll published so far, so anyone hoping to take part should watch the paper's own pages rather than assume the schedule repeats.

One practical consequence follows from the short window. A November-only vote gives supporters a narrow stretch to rally a school community, and a nominee whose supporters start late has little room to recover ground before the ballot closes.

How a supporter votes on the Herald-Times ballot today

The mechanic on the Herald-Times girls basketball ballot is deliberately plain. During the November window, a supporter reaches the Crowdsignal ballot at the poll.fm address, reads the list of nominees, each shown beside her Indiana high school, and marks the circle beside the player whose season she wants to back. Pressing the vote control registers the choice, and the page then displays the running totals for every nominee.

No account is created along the way. The Herald-Times has not printed a rule requiring a login, an email address or any registration step for this poll, so the ballot behaves like the straightforward reader polls the paper's audience already knows from other local questions.

The one point a repeat supporter should settle is the return rule. No published per-supporter ceiling exists for this award, so whether the ballot accepts a second vote from the same person on another day is something the live page itself would state. Planning a school-wide push around a daily return without checking that first is a guess, not a strategy.

Because the ballot is public, totals are visible while voting runs. That transparency matters for supporters: it lets a school community see where its nominee stands and adjust its effort while the November window is still open, instead of discovering the gap after the poll has closed.

How this ballot sits beside its Indiana siblings

Indiana high school public votes cluster into a few shapes, and this award is its own shape. The nearest sibling is the Bloomington Herald-Times Athlete of the Week, which shares the publisher's name but runs on a weekly cadence across sports rather than as a single preseason girls basketball decision. A vote cast for one is not a vote cast for the other.

The football side of the market is covered by separate programs: the Evansville Courier & Press Football Player of the Year and the Indiana High School Football Player of the Week answer to their own publishers and their own seasons. Neither touches girls basketball.

Boys basketball has its own track too, through the Indiana SI Boys Basketball Player of the Year, and football classification awards run through the Indiana SI Football 3A Player of the Year and the Indiana SI Football 4A Player of the Year.

What separates the Herald-Times award from all of them is the combination of a single publisher, a girls basketball field drawn from area high schools such as Edgewood and Owen Valley, and a preseason November window. Supporters arriving from a football poll or a weekly award should expect a different rhythm here: one ballot, one decision, one short voting stretch.

Strengthening support for a Herald-Times nominee

Because this ballot is a single November decision with visible running totals, the useful moves are specific. Circulate the poll.fm address directly among the nominee's classmates, families and boosters rather than posting it once and hoping, since a short window rewards early and repeated asks. Tie the ask to something concrete, a team dinner, a homeroom announcement or a booster club message, so the request reaches people who actually follow Edgewood or Owen Valley basketball.

On outside help, The Herald-Times has printed no rule for this poll, so anyone considering paid support should study what the organizer allows and weigh the risk before spending. Our guide to getting more votes online sets out the organic playbook that fits a school-sized ballot like this one.