Catholic's Luke Smith caps stellar season with Player of the Year award

Luke Smith flipped through the Knoxville News Sentinel’s PrepXtra Basketball section over the years, setting a goal that one day he would like to be the Boys Basketball Player of the Year.

A state championship, however, always remained the primary objective.

Catholic High School finished one win shy of accomplishing the latter, but it would not have gotten that far without Smith, who can now say he is the 2016-17 Player of the Year.

“I’m not an individual award guy,” Smith said. “I’d trade every single individual award I could for that state championship, but (to be Player of the Year) is pretty sweet.”

That answer comes as no surprise to the man who has coached the senior point guard over the past four years. To Mike Hutchens, it is that unselfishness that has gotten Smith to this point.

“That’s Luke,” Catholic coach Mike Hutchens said. “He played great this season. Everything we asked him to do, he did. Our team played so well together and he was a big part of that. … I’m like Luke, I wish we could have hit one more shot, but I think five or 10 years down the road the guys and him will realize what a great season we had.”

The Fighting Irish finished the season 31-2, including a 28-game winning streak sandwiched between losses to McCallie on Dec. 5 and Maplewood in the Class AA state championship game on March 18. They won the program’s first even region championship and made it to the state tournament for the first time since 2006.

Smith piloted that success, averaging 19 points, 6.5 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 2.8 steals per game while shooting 50.4 percent from the field, 37 percent from beyond the three-point line and 84 percent from the free-throw line.

Along the way, he was also named District 4-AA MVP, Region 2-AA Tournament MVP, a Mr. Basketball finalist and to the TSWA All-State team.

“If he’s not the best point guard in the state, I’d hate to see who is,” Hutchens said. “He just loves to play basketball. He’s worked hard, and to see the end result makes me really happy.”

The year culminated with Smith signing with Sewanee to continue his basketball career, choosing the Tigers over a pair of walk-on opportunities at UAB and Davidson as well as several scholarship offers at the Division-II level.

A stellar career ended with a standout season, not only for himself, but for Catholic. To no surprise, it is the latter he is proud of the most.

“It’s been an amazing ride with these guys,” Smith said. “I’ve been playing with them since I was eight-years-old, so it was nice to see it all pay off and have such a great final year.”