All-time great high school teams: Girls basketball - Ben Davis 2009

This is the 18th in a series of stories on top all-time teams in Indiana high school history.

• All-time great Indiana high school teams sport-by-sport

Misery set the stage for victory.

Ben Davis became state champion, and national champion, in 2009 girls basketball. Archives show the Giants did so by beating South Bend Washington 71-69. What the record doesn't reveal is the loss that turned into gain.

The year before, Ben Davis was No. 1, featuring a 24-1 record ahead of a regional championship game. Instead of taking the next step toward state, the Giants lost to Carmel 56-45. Disbelief turned to devastation.

"We stayed at the gym, just crying our eyes out an hour after the game," guard Bria Goss recalled.

Players had been together for so many months that they couldn't bear to split apart. The next day, they congregated at the home of coach Stan Benge, bringing him ice cream.

They didn't talk about basketball. They didn't want the season to end. He told them they were his daughters because he didn't have children of his own.

After leaving Coach's house, the players car-pooled to Bloomington, staying in a condo belonging to the family of teammate Emily Huber. Except for the occasional food run, they kept to themselves, feeling the collective pain. They needed that time, according to forward DeAirra Goss, older sister of Bria.

"We sat in that condo for the whole two days and just bonded with the team," she said. "We really didn't talk to anyone else."

That long Presidents Day weekend set a tone for months to come, she said.

They didn't take days off. They didn't need preseason conditioning. They were fit from the first tip.

"We just really came together as a team," Bria Goss said. "Of course, it wasn't all peaches and cream. But that's what made it special. We were able to hold ourselves accountable."

When the Giants opened the next season with a 73-35 blowout over Pike, they began what became an historic 81-game winning streak. In fact, if there is a rival to Ben Davis 2009 as the state's best ever, it would be Ben Davis 2010.

Favoring the 2009 version was the opportunity to play — and defeat — two nationally ranked opponents.

In the Giants' second game, on Nov. 22, 2008, they traveled to Illinois and beat Bolingbrook 42-28. Bolingbrook had been second in Illinois' largest class (4A) the previous year and went on to win the 2009 state championship 53-29 over Chicago Whitney Young.

Before Indiana's 4A title game, played before a crowd of 13,449 at Lucas Oil Stadium, Ben Davis and South Bend Washington were Nos. 1 and 2 in the nation.

In USA Today's final rankings, Ben Davis (30-0) was No. 1, South Bend Washington (26-1) No. 4 and Bolingbrook (25-4) No. 5. Ben Davis was Indiana's first 30-game winner in girls basketball.

In the championship game, Bria Goss banked in a runner in the lane with 1.4 seconds left for the winning basket.

"I didn't even see it go in," she said shortly afterward.

The Giants' team balance overcame the individual brilliance of Skylar Diggins, who scored eight of her 29 points in a 55-second span late in fourth quarter. Diggins became IndyStar Miss Basketball, an All-America guard at Notre Dame and a WNBA All-Star.

"I'm so happy we won," Bria Goss said. "But even if we didn't, having an opportunity to play before a crowd like that ... it was a great tie-up to such an amazing season."

Again, the Giants weren't ready for it all to end. The reveled in the bus ride home and the rally at the high school. Bria Goss said she and her sister were so hungry that their mother cooked late-night spaghetti, and the girls couldn't get to sleep until 7 the next morning.

Alex Bentley scored 18 points in the championship game, Bria Goss 15 and DeAirra Goss 12.

Ben Davis exacted revenge on Carmel in the regional, 65-42, and had just two victories by fewer than 14 points. Besides the state title game, the other was 54-51 at Terre Haute South, which came in with a No. 3 state ranking and 16-0 record.

"It seemed like everything that could go wrong went wrong," Benge said of that game.

Snow was falling, the trip west on I-70 took longer than usual and the Giants arrived barely before the scheduled tipoff. They trailed 30-19 at halftime, and then they weren't summoned back to the court. So they were late for the second half, too.

Bria Goss scored 19 of her 21 points in the second half, and Bentley blocked a potential tying 3-pointer as time expired.

"We showed up in a very tough environment," Bria Goss said.

Five players from the team became Indiana All-Stars: Bentley and DeAirra Goss in 2009, DeeDee Williams and Demetria Nunley-Lash in 2010, and Bria Goss (Miss Basketball) in 2011.

Seven became Division I college players: Bentley (Penn State); Bria Goss (Kentucky); DeAirra Goss (Western Michigan/IUPUI); Jordan Huber (Ball State); Nunley-Lash (IUPUI); Williams (Purdue); Jazmine Windham (Western Michigan). The team had an eighth major college athlete in Chanel Simmons, who ran track at Indiana University.

Emily Huber, who played at the NAIA's Ave Maria, and Bria Goss both were on Good Works Teams chosen by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association.

Also on Ben Davis' roster were Katie Kirschner, who became a Marian University golfer and is the daughter of Ben Davis football coach Mike Kirschner; Vivian Holcomb, an all-conference player at NAIA's Park University, and Janae Kimball.

Benge continues to coach, but after a stint as an IUPUI assistant, he is back in high school at Roncalli.

The legacy of 2009 Ben Davis is manifested on the court these days by Goss, a senior for a nationally ranked Kentucky team, and Bentley, a guard for the WNBA's Connecticut Sun.

"It was just an ideal situation," Benge said. "It was just a great group of people, both players and parents. It's something I'll remember my whole life, that's for sure."

Call Star reporter David Woods at (317) 444-6195. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidWoods007.