Noah Applegate ready to slide back to second place on Penn all-time scoring list
It has all the elements of a country music song — sitting alone in some hotel room, thinking about all those good times, all those good days long in the rearview mirror — right on down to unfolding in the country music capital.
On Friday evening, former Penn High School boys’ basketball standout Noah Applegate will be in Nashville, Tennessee. Once a feared prep power forward, someone who would dunk on you and then flex in front of you, the 6-foot-6, 205-pound Applegate is a redshirt junior and reserve swingman for Hillsdale (Mich.) College. The Chargers, 16-1 and ranked seventh in Division II heading into Thursday’s game at Kentucky Wesleyan, will be in Tennessee for Saturday’s game against Trevecca Nazarene.
Applegate will spend his Friday the way basketball players usually spend days before games on the road — with a practice, maybe a nap, some dinner, then a quick film session. He'll eventually retreat to his hotel room, trade text messages with his former Penn teammates and family members, then settle in front of his laptop.
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There, he’ll watch Penn senior guard Markus Burton likely make history. At his expense.
Applegate will awake Friday morning the all-time leading scorer in Penn boys’ basketball history with 1,709 points. He’ll probably go to bed that night No. 2. Behind Burton.
Applegate’s OK with it. It took 55 years for a Kingsmen — Applegate — to break the previous scoring record of Keith Berkey (1,413 points), set in 1964, when there was no 3-point line, no class basketball, no nothing that there is in today’s game. Applegate held the record for barely four seasons. That’s it.
“I am 100 percent fine with it,” Applegate said Wednesday afternoon as the Hillsdale bus rolled toward Owensboro, Kentucky. “At first, you kind of don’t want to believe that somebody’s going to break your record, but nobody’s doing it the way Markus is doing it right now. In my opinion, he’s going to be Mr. Basketball.”
In his family’s opinion, one formulated in 2019 when Applegate was a college freshman, Burton was destined to break his record. Applegate’s younger brother, Caleb, was a junior on the Penn varsity when the 6-1 Burton arrived as a freshman. Applegate’s brother and father, Dan, returned home one night from a game early in the 2019-20 season and agreed that yep, that scoring record wasn’t going to stand for long.
“I remember my brother coming home after watching Markus as a freshman and saying, ‘Your record is in trouble, man; it’s in big trouble,’” Applegate said. “It’s all good.”
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Heading into Friday’s Northern Indiana Conference contest against top-ranked (Class 3A) Marian (13-1; 3-0 NIC), Burton (27.7 ppg.) has scored 1,698 points. It’s not a matter of if Burton, who went for 40 in Tuesday’s win over Northridge, will break Applegate record, but when. First quarter? Probably. By halftime? For sure.
Applegate has one regret about it happening. It's that he’ll be in that hotel room 440 miles away and not in the Penn Palace stands. For the longest time as Burton approached the mark, Applegate had wanted to be there. Had planned to be there. To make the two-hour drive down from Hillsdale to watch Burton, to celebrate Burton, to congratulate Burton.
College basketball got in the way.
“I wish I could be there,” Applegate said. “Being seven hours away kind of hampers that.”
A big night in a big season
Watching the future Notre Dame guard close in on the scoring record rekindled so many memories for Applegate and that night he passed Berkey. On Jan. 26, 2019 — a Saturday night in Goshen — Applegate sealed his defender in textbook seal style, grabbed a pass from teammate and good friend Drew Lutz and dropped in the record-setting bucket as easily as easy gets.
He wishes today that it was a two-hand dunk or circus-shot reverse or a step-out/step-back 3. Nope. Just an average lay-in during a 23-point Penn win.
Applegate immediately felt a sense of pride, a sense of accomplishment, and a wave of chills rush over him. He hadn’t dwelled much the closer he got to the mark, but that night, that play, that basket, everything felt … different.
“I remember the surreal feeling,” Applegate said. “To get a record that had been there for that long, it meant a ton to me. I hope that it means the same to Markus.”
Afterward, Applegate was presented the game ball, which today sits in the living room of the family home. The moment and all that followed was nice, but it didn’t take long for Applegate to turn attention to bigger goals, bigger nights.
The Kingsmen went 24-4 overall and 11-1 in the NIC that 2018-19 season. He and Lutz and buddies Beau Ludwick and Kegan Hoskins set out that season to win a state championship. They thought they had the team to do it, but that dream dissolved with a semistate loss to Carmel.
Applegate will be watching Friday, and also plans to keep watching as second-ranked (Class 4A) Penn (11-1; 4-0 NIC), prepares to chase the school’s first state championship.
“I hope Markus breaks my record, then can get the state playoff deal done, get past semistate and bring it home for the Kingsmen,” Applegate said. “I’m really looking for them to make a deep run in the tournament.”
This might be Penn’s best team since the team that Applegate and Lutz and Ludwick and Hoskins drove through the NIC and sectionals and regionals, where they won the school’s first championship in 13 years. It led to some spirited discussions when Applegate and his buddies/former teammates gathered back home last summer — if this year’s Penn team, which features Burton and four seniors in the starting lineup, were to play that 2018-19 Penn team, who would win?
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The answer from the olds guys wasn’t what you might think. Applegate is the first to admit that he was a whole lot of bluster and bravado back then. He played with a you-aren't-stopping-me edge. That was then. Now? He’s a little wiser to the ways of the basketball world.
“I think it’s safe to say that we would not win,” Applegate said of the ultimate Penn pickup game. “Beau Ludwick will never admit it (no, he wouldn’t), but I don’t think so. As much as I have to swallow my pride, I’d have to say they’d win.”
The matchup between Burton and Lutz, now doing special stuff at Bethel, would be fun to watch. So too would be watching the lefty-handed, ultra-confident Applegate do what he did for his four years — get buckets. A lot of them.
By Friday night, somebody at Penn will have gotten more. How would the guy at No. 1 on the Penn all-time scoring list for a few more hours like to be remembered when he’s No. 2?
“Being able to make history at Penn was special,” Applegate said. “I hope people remember that I gave Penn a really good, solid four years, that I represented Penn well and in the right way. It was fun.”
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Penn's Markus Burton about to break Noah Applegate's scoring record
