Valparaiso coach Kelly Kratz received a text from junior guard Lillian Barnes a few days ago.

“She was asking how she could get faster and all of this other stuff,” Kratz said.

Barnes’ message, coming on the heels of the Vikings’ loss in a Class 4A semistate, reflects the mindset of a player whose work never ends.

“I just want to keep getting better,” she said. “I’m happy with what I accomplished this season, but I still have a lot of work to do and look to accomplish more next season.

“There’s always something I could’ve done better, even in what seemed like a really good game. I’m never satisfied with what I’ve done. I always want to get better. There’s always room for improvement.”

That approach to the game has impressed Kratz, who just completed her first season as Valparaiso’s coach.

“There’s no limit to what she can do because she has that drive,” Kratz said.

So it should come as no surprise that Barnes, the 2024-25 Post-Tribune Girls Basketball Player of the Year, just put together her best season yet. The 5-foot-10 Barnes averaged a career-high 21.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 4.7 steals while leading Valparaiso (19-8) to Duneland Athletic Conference, sectional and regional titles, a level of success not seen in 20 years.

Kratz tried to put that in perspective.

“Up here in this area with girls basketball, the Region, every few years we get a really great player that takes over for their high school career,” Kratz said. “Crown Point had Jessica Carrothers. West Side had Dana Evans. You come across some of these great players, and it doesn’t happen all the time. As a coach, you don’t get these players every single year, so it’s pretty special.

“The Valparaiso community, they recognize it as well. They show up for games, and the type of basketball Lilli plays is a big piece of that. But she’ll also be the first to tell you that she needs her teammates. This is the ultimate team game, and that’s a big piece of it, too, because as we got better, she got better too.”

During Barnes’ three-year career, the Vikings have won their first conference title since 2005, highlighted by an overtime victory against two-time defending champion Lake Central in January; won their first three sectional titles since 2005; and won their first two regional titles since 2004. None of that is a coincidence.

“I don’t think a single kid impacts her team more than Lilli,” Kratz said. “She touches every aspect of the game, whether it’s assists, rebounds, steals, defense. She’s part of it all.

“A big piece of it all working is that she’s such a great, high-character individual that allows you to coach her hard and sets the standard for the rest of the group. If she was out there having all of this talent and all of this basketball ability and you had to pry it out of her, the success wouldn’t be there. But it’s her character, it’s her work ethic, that happens every day.”

Crown Point coach Chris Seibert, who guided the Bulldogs to the Class 4A state championship in 2021 as part of a remarkable run spearheaded by Carrothers and Lilly Stoddard, recognizes Barnes’ significance.

“There were several other players that had great years, but the impact she makes on her team and the success they have attained really separates her,” Seibert said.

Barnes also made an impression on Andrean coach Tony Scheub, whose team played the Vikings this season for the first time since 2002-03.

“She is the complete package,” Scheub said. “I didn’t realize how strong she was until we played her. She’s good defensively too. She’s another kid that doesn’t get rattled.”

Barnes, who has about 15 college offers, believes she and the Vikings are capable of doing even more. All five starters are slated to return next season.

“Even with all of that behind us, we’ve all individually improved and improved so much as a team too,” she said. “We’re going to keep working in the offseason and hopefully be better next year.”

Getting better is a recurring theme for Barnes, who improved her 3-point shooting dramatically this season. She shot 41.6% from behind the arc, connecting on 32 of 77 attempts, after shooting 25.9% on 15-of-58 shooting in her first two seasons combined. Her volume increased, but so did her efficiency.

“I started taking more outside shots and looking for the three more,” she said. “My shot has improved just from the arc and just being able to score on all three levels.

“Defensively too. I still have to work on my fouls, but I got better on man-to-man defense.”

Playing against good teams brought out the best in Barnes.

“We put together a difficult schedule, and Lilli absolutely loved handling every obstacle that came her way,” Kratz said. “She was the first person that would say they wanted to guard the best player. But one of the biggest things about Lilli is her IQ of basketball. She understands the game at such a high level, and that puts her beyond in addition to her elite skill level.

“The other big thing with Lilli, her game just continues to grow. Most people that would have scouted her in her freshman year and sophomore year would’ve said she’s really, really dynamic, but her shooting may be her downfall. This year, she had our best 3-point percentage, which is great for her. She’s just continuing to grow in the game.”

Barnes was named the conference MVP for the third time in as many seasons, and the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association picked her for the Underclass All-State Supreme 15 list for the third straight season on Thursday. She figures to be a prime candidate to make the Indiana Junior All-Star Team.

Barnes also became the program’s career scoring leader on Dec. 28. She passed the 1,242 points scored by Jeanette Gray, a 1999 Indiana All-Star who starred at Valparaiso University and has been a longtime successful coach.

“Just to be able to break that record, I’m grateful for it,” Barnes said. “It’s a goal I’ve been wanting since before high school, and I never really knew if it could happen or not. But when I did it, I was grateful for it.”

Barnes has scored 1,485 points and is well within reach of school record-holder Roger Harden, who was voted Indiana Mr. Basketball in 1982 and played at Kentucky.

“She’s well on her way to hitting the 2,000 mark, as long as she stays healthy and all that good stuff,” Kratz said.

Barnes was sidelined with a stress fracture in her lower back for about four months between her freshman and sophomore seasons. She sat out the season opener and eased back into action over the first two weeks. Between her sophomore and junior seasons, she had surgery for a torn meniscus in her right knee, which sidelined her for about six weeks, although she was ready for the opener in November.

“I’m healthy,” Barnes said. “This is the healthiest I’ve been.”

That’s good news for the Vikings ahead of Kratz’s second season. Kratz took over at Valparaiso in May after three years as the coach at conference rival Merrillville, and her respect for Barnes has only grown.

“Basketball brings her joy,” Kratz said. “She enjoys playing basketball. She comes to practice with a smile on her face. As a coach, you look forward to practicing with athletes that have joy and great energy and are competitors.

“You see her from the exterior, and you don’t know all of the emotional aspects of great players. Do you have to push them yourself? Are they intrinsically motivated? You don’t know all of that until you meet them and work with them. But she loves basketball, her teammates love her and she’s our hardest worker. It happens every day. There’s not a day that went by — games, practices, days off — that those three things weren’t obvious.”

Something else is obvious to Kratz.

“Truly, we won’t see another Lilli Barnes around here for a while,” Kratz said. “We are very proud of her.”