The Star Press IU Health Boys Basketball Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Star Press IU Health player of the year vote is and who runs it

The Star Press IU Health Boys Basketball Player of the Year, a season-ending public-vote award for Indiana high school boys basketball, closes each basketball year with one ballot. The organizer named for the program is The Star Press IU Health, and the publisher behind it is The Star Press, an Indiana news organization whose coverage area supplies the nominees. Crowdsignal's poll.fm service carries the vote, and the live ballot sits at https://poll.fm/16787616.

One question appears on the ballot: who should take the boys player of the year honor for the 2025-26 season. The nominee list on the poll describes high school players by class and school, all from Indiana schools. This page describes the field by publisher, sport, gender, class and season rather than naming the students on it, because the ballot options are minors. Sponsorship from IU Health sits in the program name alongside the publisher's masthead.

Unlike a weekly honor such as the Bloomington Herald-Times Athlete of the Week, this is a single season-closing ballot with one question and one award at the end of the basketball year. The vertical is sport, the mechanic is an open public vote that anyone with the link can cast, and the contest type is an award rather than a business or photo contest.

The dated record for the Star Press player of the year poll

Two edition years stand for this Star Press ballot, 2025 and 2026. The newer one covers the 2025-26 basketball season, and its page at poll.fm is marked closed. The closing point is dated in the publisher's own promotion of the vote: "The poll will remain open until noon Friday, March 27." Noon on March 27, 2026 is therefore the one hard deadline attached to the current cycle.

What the publisher has not printed is the other half of the schedule. No opening date for the voting window appears with the ballot, no nomination round schedule is posted, and no category list beyond the player of the year question itself is published anywhere on the ballot page; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Recurrence reads as annual from the edition years alone: 2025 and 2026, both anchored to March, one ballot per basketball season. A 2027 edition has not been announced, and the publisher has not posted dates or a nominee list for a season after 2025-26. The recurrence pattern, a March close following a winter season, is the only timing shape the confirmed years support, and anything beyond it, including exact opening days and any nomination round, is absent from the ballot page.

How a supporter votes in the Star Press basketball poll today

Voting is a browser action on the poll.fm ballot at https://poll.fm/16787616. The page shows the player of the year question for the 2025-26 season and a list of choices, each a nominee described by class and school. A supporter selects one choice and submits, and the page registers the vote and shows the running tally. No account step is printed on the ballot for this program.

The rate rule comes from the publisher's promotion of the poll: "You may vote one time per hour, per device." To vote again, a backer waits an hour on the same device, or casts the next vote from a different device. The hourly reset is the only cadence the publisher states, and no other cap appears on the ballot page for the Star Press IU Health program.

Weight matters as much as volume. The publisher's own article on the vote states that "the fan vote is only one-third of the process" to determine the award. Winning the public tally therefore helps a nominee without deciding the award on its own, and supporters pushing for votes should know the fan share is a portion of the final decision, not the whole of it. That split is the single most important fact about this ballot's mechanics.

How this ballot sits beside its Indiana neighbours

Indiana runs several publisher-decided fan votes, and this one is distinguishable by publisher, sport and cadence. The Indiana SI statewide award for boys basketball covers the same sport under a national brand, while the Star Press ballot belongs to one Indiana publisher and carries an IU Health sponsorship in its title. Both are season-ending basketball awards, but they answer to different organizers.

The football side of the market runs on a similar split. The Indiana SI Football 3A Player of the Year and the Indiana SI Football 4A Player of the Year divide statewide football by class, whereas the Evansville Courier & Press Football Player of the Year is a publisher award from a different Indiana city. The Indiana High School Football Player of the Week runs on a weekly cadence rather than a season-ending one.

What makes the Star Press ballot different within this set is the combination of a single publisher's coverage area, a boys basketball award, and a fan vote that counts for one-third of the result. A weekly honor such as the Bloomington Herald-Times Athlete of the Week resets every week, while this ballot opens once per basketball season and closes on a stated date in March. Anyone choosing where to spend effort should match the cadence to the program.

Strengthening support in the Star Press player of the year vote

Building support in this Star Press ballot starts from the mechanic the publisher states: a single vote each hour from each device. A nominee's backers get the most from the ballot by returning hourly and by bringing new voters to the poll.fm page, since every fresh device is a fresh vote under the stated rule. Because the fan vote is one-third of the final decision, a public push matters, but it is not the whole path to the award.

No organizer policy on outside help appears anywhere on this ballot page, so supporters weighing paid or automated assistance have no stated rule from the publisher to read against. The general question of what outside help does to a ballot's standing is covered in how to get more votes online, which stays within the mechanics a public vote actually rewards.

Timing also matters. The confirmed close for the 2025-26 ballot was noon on March 27, so a push that starts after a poll closes earns nothing, and the ballot page marks the poll closed once the deadline passes. Checking the live ballot before organizing anyone is the first step of any push for this program.