How this IHSAA basketball star shed 45 pounds, developed into one of state's top scorers.

INDIANAPOLIS — New Palestine welcomed a new player to its basketball team this season.

He is 6-3, 185 pounds and comes from a basketball family. Oh, and he has varsity experience, too. He averaged 8.9 points as a sophomore and shot 42% from the 3-point line.

His name? Julius Gizzi.

The “new kid” is actually the same kid. But you might do a double take. Because the transformation of Gizzi from a quality player and one of Central Indiana’s best long-range shooters to an offensive machine averaging 30.4 points per game goes beyond his evolution as a basketball player.

A lifestyle change started the day after New Palestine lost in the regional to Brownsburg in March. Gizzi got back in the gym, changed his diet and stuck with the plan. It might sound like a New Year’s resolution, basketball version. But the results 10 months later are playing off.

“I kind of just flipped the switch,” said Gizzi, who lost 45 pounds from the end of last season.

With junior teammate and starting point guard Moses Haynes — the team’s second-leading scorer and assist leader (and Gizzi’s cousin) — sidelined on Wednesday, Gizzi showed off his new and improved game by nearly carrying the Dragons to an upset win at Class 4A No. 2 Lawrence North. Gizzi scored 36 points on 11-for-20 shooting from the field and was 10-for-12 from the free-throw line, though the Wildcats pulled away in the final minute for a 57-48 victory.

“It was very fun,” Gizzi said of the matchup with Lawrence North. “Tiring. But very fun. When we play like that, it’s a lot more fun to be able to compete with a team like that. I’m very tired. I can’t even explain it because Moses (normally) takes so much pressure off me, bringing the ball up.”

Lawrence North threw several talented defensive players at Gizzi, who scored 17 of his points in the first half to stake the Dragons to a 26-21 lead. But even with added attention on him and renewed energy from Lawrence North in the third quarter, Gizzi still managed to score. A 3-pointer here, a drive there. When the Wildcats did manage to stop him, they often did so by sending him to the free-throw line.

“He knows the wherewithal of his body and where the rim is at all times,” New Palestine coach Trent Whitaker said. “He created a lot of contact. He was getting hit a lot I thought and he just battled through it.”

Gizzi scored 19 of his team’s 22 points in the second half. Lawrence North junior guard Azavier Robinson, with coaches from Cincinnati, Indiana and Purdue in the building, led the Wildcats with 21 points, including 14 in the second half.

“What’s their weakness?” Whitaker said of Lawrence North. “They don’t really have any huge weakness at all, which is why they are the No. 1 team in the state. Another team big enough may give them some trouble but man, the speed, the athleticism, is just next level.”

Which is what made Gizzi’s individual performance all that more impressive. He had a solid sophomore season last year for a New Palestine team led by seniors Blaine Nunnally and Ian Stephens that went 23-3. He was thrilled with the team success, but not satisfied with his own performance.

So, he went to work.

“He had goals and ambitions and we set up a workout plan,” said his father, Mike Gizzi, who coaches Julius in the summer and is an assistant on the New Palestine bench. “But he did all the work. He went to work like I’ve never seen from another high school kid. He changed his diet, did speed and agility work and got in the gym and shot a ton of shots. His work ethic is the best I’ve seen.”

It helped to have an older brother willing to help little brother succeed. Maximus Gizzi, the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,612 points and now a senior guard at Marian University, was a fundamental floor general for the Dragons. Julius, through watching his brother (and sister Isabella Gizzi, the girls program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,676 points who is now a freshman at St. Francis), learned a lot.

“I watch him a lot,” Julius said. “I kind of just try to do what he does.”

Julius’ game, though, may be more like his father than his brother, according to Sarah (Haynes) Gizzi, a star player herself at New Palestine who held the girls’ scoring record until it was broken by her daughter. Mike and Sarah both played in college at LaSalle University, where they met, before Mike went on to play professionally in Europe for 12 years.

“I think he’s one of those kids that older brother, older sister and dad probably beat him up in the driveway and he learned how to flip the basketball over his head and spin it off the glass quite a bit,” Whitaker said. “I’m glad he’s on my team.”

Gizzi said it took about a month into his new diet and workout regimen to feel a change in how his body was feeling.

“I changed my whole diet, spending countless hours in the gym and running so much more than I did,” Gizzi said. “I was eating so much cleaner, drinking water. That was probably the biggest thing right there. It didn’t seem drastic to me because I never felt like I was that out of shape. … it was definitely a mindset. Once you get past the first two weeks, it’s kind of a like a regimen, so you just have to follow it at that point.”

The difference is striking in areas that go well beyond Gizzi’s physical appearance. While his overall points per game average is more than triple what it was a year ago, his efficiency is also up. Gizzi is shooting 54% from the field, 43% from the 3-point line and 82% from the free-throw line.

As a sophomore, he shot 30 free throws all season. This year, he is averaging 7.8 free-throw attempts per game. Gizzi is also averaging 7.8 rebounds per game, up from 2.7 as a sophomore.

“He had a great summer,” Mike Gizzi said. “I think you can see now his confidence is incredibly high. Julius is fearless. He airballed a shot and came back down and hit two. Playing LN on their floor with Big Ten colleges in the building didn’t seem to faze him at all. They were running different guys at him every quarter and they are really good players.”

Gizzi’s recruiting is starting to pick up with several NAIA schools in contact, along with some Ivy League and Patriot League schools at the Division I level. But he is not putting too much pressure on himself in recruiting, or on the court. As the past 10 months have proved, the results follow the work.

“There’s really no pressure out there,” he said. “I just try to go out there and play and have fun.”

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: How Julius Gizzi became one of IHSAA basketball's top scorers