Maryland High School Boys Basketball Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Maryland High School Boys Basketball Player of the Year award?

The Maryland High School Boys Basketball Player of the Year is an annual end-of-season honour administered by High School on SI, the prep-sports vertical of Sports Illustrated operating under the Arena Group's SBLive Sports platform. The award covers the full landscape of Maryland boys basketball — both MPSSAA (Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association) public schools competing in Classes 4A through 1A, and MIAA (Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association) private schools in the A, B, and C conferences.

• Published at si.com/high-school/maryland — Sports Illustrated's statewide Maryland prep hub.
• Ballot nominees are drawn from both dual governing bodies: MPSSAA (public) and MIAA (private), giving the award genuine cross-sector reach.
• The fan vote opens after the MPSSAA state tournaments and MIAA championships conclude each March, putting the final ballot in front of voters at peak post-season energy.
• Vote cap is once per IP address per day; no account or registration required.
• The poll closes on a Sunday — typically in April — at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time, as stated in each year's ballot article.
• A winner earns a published credential on si.com, searchable by college coaches across the country.

Who are the notable nominees and recent standouts in this Maryland boys basketball vote?

High School on SI has run Maryland sport-specific Player of the Year votes since the early 2020s. The boys basketball ballot each year reflects the genuine best-of-season performers from across the state. Below are confirmed real nominees and recognised standouts from recent award cycles, drawn from published SI.com ballot articles and regional award announcements.

Confirmed nominees and recognised players

The 2025-26 ballot is among the deepest in recent memory, mixing MIAA private-school names with MPSSAA state champions from multiple classifications. A recurring theme across Maryland's boys basketball POY landscape is the tension between MIAA A Conference powerhouses — where nationally recruited talent concentrates — and MPSSAA public-school stars who rack up individual production on their way to state championships.

Which Maryland schools and conferences produce boys basketball POY nominees?

Maryland boys basketball sits at the intersection of two governing bodies with different structures, competitive levels, and geographic concentrations. Understanding both is essential for reading the POY ballot each spring.

MIAA private schools (Baltimore metro and DC suburbs)

MPSSAA public schools (statewide, Classes 4A–1A)

Public school nominees on the SI POY ballot come primarily from the MPSSAA's larger classifications, where volume of talent and individual statistical output can rival the MIAA. Recent POY-contending public schools include C.H. Flowers and Meade in the 4A class, James Hubert Blake in Montgomery County's 4A landscape, and Lackey in the 2A classification out of Charles County. The MPSSAA organises competition through eight regions, with Baltimore City, Prince George's County, Montgomery County, and Anne Arundel County producing the majority of POY-level talent in the public school bracket.

Saint Frances Academy occupies a distinct position: a Baltimore City private school that competes nationally, regularly scheduling games across the country against top-ranked programs. Saint Frances players who appear on the Maryland POY ballot bring national exposure that few state peers can match.

How does the Maryland Boys Basketball Player of the Year vote work?

The mechanics are straightforward and free to use. High School on SI publishes the ballot as a standalone article at si.com/high-school/maryland, typically in late March or early April once the MPSSAA state tournaments and MIAA championship games have concluded. The article lists each nominee with their school, key stats, and season highlights, then embeds a poll widget where readers cast their vote.

The vote cap is one vote per IP address per day. Unlike hourly-cap newspaper polls, this format rewards consistent daily outreach over a sustained multi-day window rather than intensive hourly mobilisation. A supporter with home broadband and a separate cellular connection effectively has two independent voting surfaces each day. For a plain-language overview of how online high school sports polls work and how voting mechanics vary by platform, see our full guide to online contest voting.

The close date and time are stated explicitly in each ballot article — for the 2025-26 cycle, SI.com published a Sunday, April 12 deadline at 11:59 p.m. PT. The article also displays a running vote total so supporters can track where their nominee stands throughout the window and calibrate the intensity of their outreach effort accordingly.

How do you build votes for Maryland Boys Basketball Player of the Year?

Because the cap resets daily rather than hourly, the campaign rhythm here differs from weekly newspaper polls. Sustained daily reminders over a 7–10 day window beat a single 24-hour push. The most effective Maryland-specific networks for this contest follow the sport's geography — Baltimore metro Catholic school alumni chains, Prince George's County youth basketball communities, and statewide high school basketball social media accounts all convert well for boys basketball nominees.

The AAU angle is distinctive to Maryland boys basketball. The state's travel basketball landscape — centred on organisations like Team Thrill, DC Premier, and affiliated Under Armour Association programs — connects players and families from Anne Arundel County to Montgomery County to Baltimore City in a single social network. When a nominee's travel ball community activates for a POY vote, the reach often exceeds the high school's own booster base.

For nominees from smaller MPSSAA classifications like 2A or 1A, the daily-cap structure actually levels the playing field relative to 4A schools: each family member still gets exactly one vote per day, regardless of school enrollment size. A well-organised 2A program with a tight-knit community can outpace a 4A school whose families are less engaged. Consistent, daily outreach over the full window is the single highest-leverage action any supporter can take. Our broader vote-building playbook lives at our how-to guide.

Rules and the paid-votes question for this poll

The Maryland Boys Basketball POY is a reader engagement poll with no cash prize and no formal Maryland prize-promotion regulatory structure. High School on SI's platform terms primarily address the technical vote cap — automated manipulation that bypasses the per-IP daily limit is the core prohibited behaviour.

• Prohibited: automated scripts, bots, or VPN rotation tools that cycle through many IP addresses to submit rapid-fire votes outside the one-per-day-per-IP cap. These produce detectable traffic patterns and result in vote removal.
• Not inherently prohibited: sharing the direct ballot link widely so that real people cast genuine votes from their own connections — this is indistinguishable from effective organic outreach.
• Borderline area: paid services that deliver real human voters who each vote from their own devices on their own IPs. Whether this satisfies the spirit of the contest's terms is a judgement each family should make after reading the current year's ballot article at si.com.

The practical consequence of flagged automated votes in a format like this is removal from the running tally. There is no athlete disqualification, no legal consequence, and no impact on the nominee's future eligibility for the award. The reputational dimension — the credibility of the recognition — is the more honest consideration: a win built on genuine fan mobilisation carries weight in college recruiting conversations that an inflated tally does not. For a balanced overview of where paid promotion fits in the online contest ecosystem, see our full guide.

When does Maryland Boys Basketball Player of the Year voting open and close?

The winter basketball season in Maryland runs from mid-November through early March, when both the MPSSAA state tournaments (held at the University of Maryland's XFINITY Center and regional venues) and the MIAA championship games conclude. High School on SI typically publishes the Boys Basketball POY ballot within one to three weeks after the final championship game, once the sports desk has compiled the full field of season performances for comparison.

The 10-to-14-day voting window means supporters have roughly 10–14 opportunities to cast one daily vote per IP — a maximum organic total of around 10–14 votes per household IP, plus any mobile data connections. Families that activate their networks on day one and send a brief daily reminder through close consistently outperform those that push hard only in the final 48 hours.

Watch si.com/high-school/maryland in mid-March each year for the ballot article to appear. There is no fixed publication date — it depends on when the state and MIAA tournaments finish. For a broader look at statewide Maryland voting contests and seasonal sports polls, see our Maryland contest hub. The full directory of US state-level contest guides lives at our USA index.