Doyel: Are we watching Indiana high school basketball's best shooter?

Gregg Doyel
IndyStar
Danville Warriors' Ella Collier is one of the best players in Indiana.

INDIANAPOLIS – Danville’s Ella Collier planned to take 500 shots on Monday, then started doing the math in her head and realized it could be more.

“Well, let’s see …”

She’s thinking. It’s almost 10 a.m. now, and she’ll have the Danville High gym to herself until noon. So that’s two hours, and she has a routine, and she’s efficient. It doesn’t take long for a rebounder to get her the ball, because she makes almost everything she shoots. No, really. You should see this girl shoot. In a few hours, I’m going to see it for myself.

The IBCA/IHSAA Underclass Showcase is later Monday, with games at Ben Davis High going into the night, and six-foot Danville guard Ella Collier will be playing because she averaged 21.3 points as a sophomore and is on pace to finish somewhere on the Top 25 of the all-time state scoring chart. Obviously she’s one of the better young players in Indiana, and wait a minute …

Now I’m thinking.

Hang on, I’m saying to Ella on Monday morning, where I’ve found her on her coach's phone. You’re shooting now? But you’re playing three games tonight.

“Maybe more than that,” she says.

Shouldn’t you be resting?

“I want to make sure my shot is down,” Ella says.

Well, this is what she does. Her coach at Danville had told me as much.

“She’s a perfectionist,” is what Kaley May had said.

Ella Collier practices a lot. After a loss, she said: "I have to go to the gym and shoot because I just have to.”

* * *

There was the Beech Grove game. Ella Collier scored 23 points and Danville defeated its sectional rival 54-44, but Ella didn’t like how she played. Didn’t like how she shot. She made all 11 of her free throws but was just 5-for-17 from the floor, and she’s not having that. This was Dec. 22, no school the next day, so Ella went to the locker room and celebrated with her teammates, then said goodbye and stayed another hour at the gym. Just to shoot some more.

There was the semi-state loss to Greensburg. Ella scored 22 points, coldly efficient – 8-for-12 from the floor – but she missed two free throws (6-for-8 on the night) and she’s not having that. Plus, the loss. Greensburg ended Danville’s season 61-52.

“I get so mad, oh my gosh,” Ella’s telling me. “I have to go to the gym and shoot because I just have to.”

Did I mention the semistate game was in Jeffersonville? Almost 2½ hours from Danville? And it was a Saturday night, no school the next day, so …

“My poor mom,” Ella says, giggling, and I don’t think she means it. “We got back (to Danville) and stayed in the gym pretty late that night. She rebounds for me.”

Ella replays games in her head, goes to the spots on the floor where she missed, and wears those floorboards out. She doesn't take bad shots, which is what makes her so infuriated when she misses. But her coach, if you can believe this, would like her to stop being so choosy. Start shooting more. Because the truth is this: A bad shot isn’t so bad, if Ella Collier is shooting it.

“We’re going to challenge her this year to do more, and I know that’s kind of crazy looking at her stats, but she’s almost …” Kaley May cuts herself off. She knows she’s about to say something that could sound silly, but she’s coaching a once-in-a-lifetime kind of player. May is a young coach – she was a 2008 Indiana All-Star at Avon, then played at Butler – but the odds of her getting another shooter like Ella Collier are somewhere between slim and none. Anyway, she’s ready to finish her thought.

“I don’t think any coach would ever say this,” May is telling me, “but (Ella) is almost too efficient. She needs to be taking more shots, challenging herself and taking more difficult shots.”

Danville’s going to need it. The Warriors graduated three seniors who combined for 22.5 ppg: Baylee Muse, Lexi Riggles and Ella’s older sister, Addie Collier, a 6-0 forward who will play next season at Rose-Hulman. The Warriors will need more of everything from Ella Collier, who added 5.4 rebounds, two assists and three steals to her 21.3 ppg.

Colliers' coach is pushing for her to shoot more this year, saying she's "almost too unselfish."

“We’re going to need to see a different side of Ella,” May says. "I don’t think she knows what her true potential is, plus she was always afraid of being a ball hog and taking on a negative image. I think all of her teammates would agree: She’s far from being a selfish player. Almost too unselfish in my opinion.”

Last season Collier was the only girl in Indiana to reach all three of the following shooting marks: 50 percent from the floor, 40 percent from the 3-point line, 90 percent from the foul line. The only one, according to my research of the MaxPreps.com website.

Two came close: Kokomo sophomore Madison Layden (18.7 ppg), who shot 50 percent overall, 42 percent on 3’s and 89 percent at the line, and Iowa-bound Carmel senior Tomi Taiwo (47 percent, 41 percent and 90 percent; 16.4 ppg). On the boys side, just one kid in the state’s top 100 scorers shot 50-40-90: Freshman Luke Brown of Blackford (50 percent, 43 percent, 92 percent), who was fourth in the state at 27.8 ppg when his season was cut short by injury after 15 games.

The 50-40-90 club is exclusive in the NBA, with just seven members: Larry Bird (1987 and ’88), Mark Price, Reggie Miller of the Indiana Pacers (1994), Steve Nash (four times), Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant and, most recently, Stephen Curry (2016).

Danville’s Ella Collier did it last season: 56 percent from the floor, 41 percent on 3-pointers, 91 percent from the line. She was a high school sophomore. Let’s go watch her play, shall we?

* * *

Collier, shown fighting toward the basket during a game, has a routine for practice shooting, her mom Becky says. She finishes it by shooting 20 free throws in a row. She starts over again if she misses one.

The shot is perfect. That’s the first thing I'm seeing as Ella Collier catches a pass and launches it toward the rim. It’s textbook and it’s fast, the spitting image of the jumper Doug Collier – her dad – used to score 962 points at Cascade High from 1982-1986.

“Same shot,” Ella’s mom, Becky, is telling me from the bleachers at Ben Davis. Ella is the fourth of Becky and Doug’s five kids. Taryn (2011), Mitchell (‘14), Addie (’18) played at Danville, Ella is halfway through her career – and halfway to 2,000 career points, with 1,001 – and the fifth Collier, Owen, is a seventh-grader who will be on the Danville boys team in due time.

Becky is telling me about Ella’s shooting routine, having to hit so many shots from so many spots on the court, and then 20 consecutive free throws. Nineteen isn’t going to cut it. Nineteen is going to make her start over at zero. On the bright side, she doesn’t need many cracks at it before unreeling 20 straight free throws. Heck, she made seven 3-pointers earlier this season against Decatur Central. Seven in a row, I’m saying.

“She expects to make them all,” Becky says, shaking her head at the idea. “If she has a game where she hits 50 percent, she’s mad. ‘But Ella, you made 50 percent.’ And she goes: ‘Well …’”

On the court below, Ella is catching a pass and – boom – redirecting it to the hoop in one motion. It happens so fast I’m wanting to rewind it, to watch it again. Can’t do that, as I'm remembering something the Danville coach was telling me earlier in the day.

“Watch her shoot,” Kaley May was saying. “It’s very minimalistic. Nothing extra, not a lot of room for error because it's so simple.”

Ella reached double figures in every game as a sophomore but never topped 27 points, hovering most nights around her 21.3 ppg average. May wants her to push that number higher as a junior, and Ella’s not sure how she feels about it.

“It’s really hard for me right now,” she says. “I hate missing shots, so I take really specific shots, and if I don’t think it’s a good shot in my opinion, I don’t shoot it. But I’m trying to take more (this summer) because I’m going to have to next season. I’m going to have to get up 20 shots a game.”

Now I’m thinking. Wait a minute …

Ella, I’m saying, do you know your career-high for shots?

“No,” she says.

Seventeen.

“Oh no,” she says. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.