Addison Seibert recalls taking pictures with Crown Point players as they celebrated postseason titles during the years when her father, Chris, was the coach.
These days, the 5-foot-8 guard/forward is one of the primary subjects in such team photos. On Saturday, Addison Seibert and the Bulldogs, who start three sophomores and two juniors under first-year coach Brad Stangel, won their first sectional title since 2022.
“All the hard work is paying off,” Addison Seibert said. “It’s such a great experience. To be able to do it with my teammates, it’s just really cool.
“We’ve stayed together through all of it. We’re all playing for the same goal, and you can just see that on the court. When it comes down to it, we’re all just there to win.”
Chris Seibert, whose 10 seasons as coach included four straight sectional titles and the 2021 Class 4A state championship, has been savoring that win.
“I’m loving life,” he said. “I’m so happy for the kids. I’m so happy for Brad and his staff. I haven’t stopped smiling. I just could not be happier. It’s definitely a different feeling on this side of the aisle. But I’m so incredibly happy for them. A lot of these kids have been playing together since fourth, fifth grade, and to see them be able to come up and walk up that ladder and cut down those nets, it was as good as it gets.
“This is now the next generation to hopefully continue on that tradition of success in this program. For Addy to be able to grow up in this program and see all these kids and all the success and be in those pictures when we’re winning sectionals and regionals and semistates, to see her heroes, really the kids she looked up to, to get to experience that and to come full circle and get to see her and her teammates get to experience that, as a dad and as somebody who cares a lot about this program, it’s hard to put into words how much that means.”
Addison Seibert has been instrumental in that success. She averages 2.9 points, 1.1 rebounds and 1.7 assists for the Bulldogs (22-4), who will play Penn (24-3), the 12th-ranked team in the state coaches poll, in the Class 4A LaPorte Regional. But Addison Seibert’s influence extends beyond statistics.
“We’re going to LaPorte on Wednesday to practice, and I might bring my daughter, and Addy said, ‘I remember going,’” Stangel said. “She’s been around this stuff. When you’re around it, you pick up on things, basketball nuances and what’s supposed to happen in order to win. She does.
“She makes a lot of winning plays. She leads our team in charges taken. She makes a lot of winning plays without having to put the ball in the basket. That is such a valuable asset for a basketball team. We’re better when she’s out there. Whether she scores 2 points or 12 points, she is constantly making an impact on the game.”
Stangel also praised Addison Seibert and sophomore guard/forward Sidney Hale for their defensive prowess.
“She’s guarded some really good players this year and done a great job,” Stangel said of Addison Seibert. “Between her and Sid, they get the two best guards. Sid’s usually guarding the ball handler, and Addy’s on the wing.
“She’s really done a good job of fighting through screens and just making sure scoring has been hard for those girls. Everything she does, she’s always in the right spot. It makes it hard for people. She’s our best screener. She knows all of our actions the best out of any of our group. She’s also a very good student — just a student. And that plays a part in it. She’s just a smart person.”
Crown Point junior forward/center Ivy Henderson highlighted Addison Seibert’s defense too.
“Addy is an incredible player on defense and is the girl we can always count on to take a charge or put her body on the line for a play,” Henderson said. “She has a strong mentality and is very physical as she is frequently put in positions to set screens on bigger players.
“Her communication on defense is amazing, and I can always trust her to be in the right position at all times.”
Stangel noticed such qualities in Addison Seibert from the outset.
“When everything’s brand new, everybody has a clean slate,” he said. “We just see what people do. So when we saw her in the summer, what stood out was the fact that when she’s on the floor, she doesn’t make many mistakes. You watch her play, she’s out there for six, seven, eight minutes, and she never makes a mistake. Nobody’s perfect, but she doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. When we were watching them in the summer, she was really, really fundamentally sound. She was sharp. She’s a really good student of the game.
“She’s a leader, and she’ll develop into a great leader for our program. She’s been great for us.”
Stangel said he had a degree of familiarity with Addison Seibert, whose sister Brynn is a seventh grader, before this season.
“I knew Addison a little bit before I got here,” Stangel said. “She was the only one I had met before just because Chris and I used to coach softball together. Brynn and my oldest are about the same age, and when we coached them, Addison was around.
“So she was the only one I really knew before I got here, and it was nice for me to look at a new group of faces and see one I’d seen a little bit before. I didn’t know her a whole lot, but at least I’d seen her before.”
Sophomore guard/forward Addison Seibert has helped Crown Point win its first sectional title since 2022. (Michael Osipoff / Post-Tribune)
Addison Seibert’s freshman season was hampered by a back injury, but she’s healthy this season and has continued to develop.
“A lot of it is confidence, building confidence between last year and this year,” she said. “That’s really helped boost me as a player.
“Obviously, coming in last year was nerve-wracking at first. These are the people we’ve looked up to all of our lives, growing up in the gym. But it was great. Everyone, especially our upperclassmen, they’re all super welcoming. As soon as you get brought in, you’re all part of the family. It doesn’t really matter how old you are, what class you’re in. We’re all in this together.”
Addison Seibert enjoyed playing for her father last season.
“It was something I always wanted to do since I was little,” she said. “So it was great to finally experience it. It was a great balance between dad at home and coach on the court. That was huge.”
Chris Seibert announced his resignation in April.
“I understand why, and we’ve been so blessed to have coach Stangel,” Addison Seibert said. “Obviously, it was sad at first, but everything happens for a reason. So just making that transition, it’s been great.
“It’s definitely different this year. But myself and everyone in the gym knows he’s still rooting for us. He’ll always be there. Whether he’s sitting on the sideline or not, he’s still there for us. We see him and talk to him during the day. It’s different with him not there during the games, but outside the games, he’s still there. When I’m in the weight room, he’ll be there.”
Indeed, Chris Seibert is the chair of Crown Point’s physical education department and is highly active in numerous school organizations.
“I’m in the weight room all day, so I see most of them,” he said. “I’m involved in a lot of different leadership clubs, a lot of different things that they’re all involved in, and I can give a little bit more time to some of those things where I’ve been doing my best to try to do it all. But being the head coach here is more than a full-time job. So I do see all of them and still get to encourage them, and they know how much I care and want them to be successful.
“As a teacher, it’s a different role. Obviously, I have no say in anything that goes on on the court, but that’s a good thing too. It’s been a different role just to support them and push them and encourage them from afar.”
Chris Seibert was emphatic in his praise of Stangel, the rest of the staff and the players.
“I cannot say enough about how great a job Brad and his staff have done of embracing the traditions that help make this program special and incorporating that, but also forging their own path and leaving their own mark,” Chris Seibert said. “This program could not be in better hands than it is with him and his staff.
“He has three of my former players on the staff as well, so that’s really cool to have that link to the past, but also having a lot of new faces in the program this year that are taking it to new heights. It’s all you can ask for as somebody who cares deeply about this program.”
Chris Seibert is in a good place, too, a little less than a year after stepping down as coach.
“It just felt like the right time,” he said. “I wanted to at least try to coach my daughter for a year. I didn’t want to regret never having the opportunity to do that. I enjoyed it, but I also found it challenging as far as you coach your kid and you want them to be perfect, you want them to go out there and not make a mistake. At times, I was harder on her than I probably should have been. Maybe my expectations weren’t as realistic as they should have been.
“Unfortunately, she was battling injuries a lot throughout the year. But overall, it was wonderful. It was wonderful to get to coach those kids. It’s something I would never, ever take back. I would never regret having the opportunity to do that. I also had some longtime coaches that were with me that were retiring. I knew what was coming. I knew we were going to be good, and the last thing I ever wanted to do was leave and not have us be good — not that it ever would be at Crown Point. But to have that nucleus of kids coming back, I knew whoever came in here was going to be set up for success, and Brad and his staff have done a tremendous job. I have never been more at peace with the decision.”
Addison Seibert is right in the middle of it.
“This year I’ve really seen her take her game to the next level and just be healthy and be free and just go out there and make winning basketball plays,” Chris Seibert said. “That’s the greatest compliment you can give someone, that they’re a winning basketball player. Things don’t always show up in the box score or in the scorebook, but coaches recognize that these are keys.
“Whenever we’ve had good teams, we’ve always had one or two kids that filled that role, and Addy does a great job of being able to do that with this group that is so talented around her. To fill that role and then be the type of teammate and leader she is, I could not be more proud of the way she handles herself in those areas.”
