BND’s preps basketball poll: Who is the Player of the Week for Week 1 in southwest IL?

Tyler Lunning of O’Fallon High School is the winner of the inaugural Belleville News-Democrat Player of the Week high school basketball poll, as selected by readers of bnd.com.

In recent high school basketball games, Lunning, a senior, posted 13 points against Granite City, 11 points against Belleville West and 16 points against Hazelwood Central. Entering action this weekend, Lunning was averaging 11.6 points per game.

Lunning tallied 10,681 votes (65%) to finish ahead of O’Fallon Township High School counterpart Shannon Dowell, who picked up 2,149 votes (13%), and Norah Gum of Waterloo High School, who secured 2,065 votes (13%). Mascoutah’s Sophie Loden, meanwhile, received 1,347 votes (8%).

Other nominees from the BND’s area included Justin King of Mascoutah, Jordan Pickett of Belleville East and Alaina Lester of Althoff. The poll ended at 11:59 p.m. Thursday.

To be clear, this poll is not scientific. In fact, we invite you to vote as many times as you want. It’s all for fun, BND readers.

Anyone can nominate a varsity boys or girls high school basketball player for next week’s poll by emailing gvartanian@bnd.com. The Week 2 poll will appear on the BND’s website — www.bnd.com — at 5 a.m. Tuesday.

This story was originally published December 11, 2021 at 7:00 AM.