Pictured above: Sacred Heart head boys basketball coach Brian Gormley

Nine months after the Sacred Heart boys’ 2024-25 basketball season ended in disappointment, the memory still lingers.

The Knights went into the postseason unbeaten, positioned to build on a third-place Class 2A state tournament finish the year before, only to stumble in the second round of sub-state.

“We were all just really disappointed from not making it as far as we wanted to last year, and we’re hoping to bounce back,” senior guard Luke Koland said.

Senior guard Luke Koland

So far, so good for the Knights, who handily won their first three games heading into a 4:30 p.m. Friday test against state-ranked Rossville in the Chapman Irish Classic.

“We definitely want to make it back to state like we did two years ago,” said senior forward Will Tuttle, the Knights’ leading scorer and a returning 2A all-state selection. “We’ve worked hard in the offseason, in practice, and doing open gyms before practice started.”

Senior forward Will Tuttle

The Knights have four starters back from last year’s 20-1 team and heading into this week were ranked No. 4 in 2A by the Kansas State Basketball Coaches Association. They breezed past St. John’s-Tipton, 67-50, and Clifton-Clyde, 68-41, in a pair of road games before knocking off host Chapman on Tuesday in the first round of the Irish Classic, 64-23.

But next up is No. 7-ranked Rossville, fresh off a state runner-up finish in football.

“They have six guys who play basketball like football, and then they have Jack Donovan, who is probably the best offensive player in 2A,” veteran Sacred Heart coach Brian Gormley said of the Bulldogs (1-1). “(Cameron) Miller is a really nice inside-outside guy at 6-5, and the (Jakoby) McDonnell kid, this is his third year as their starting point guard.”

The Knights, who wrap up the Irish Classic with a noon game Saturday against Bishop Ward, also return a veteran team from a year ago. They have four starters and five of their top six contributors back.

Tuttle averaged 20.6 points and 6.8 rebounds while shooting 48% from 3-point range, and he is scoring at a 19.7-point clip so far this season. Forward Noah Hines adds 14 points, up from 12 points in 2024-25, and Koland 10, more than double his average from last year.

Junior guards Maddox Wells and Dominic Matteucci round out the lineup along with senior post player Ben Disberger, who could be a starter.

That experience allowed the Knights to hit the ground running this year, as evidenced by their early results.

“It definitely took us a little longer last year to get a feel for how the games would go and how we needed to play each game,” Tuttle said.

Added Koland, “We definitely have a lot more chemistry than we did last year already.”

The one concern for the Knights, especially as they head to the postseason, is a lack of size. Tuttle is the tallest starter at 6-foot-2, with Disberger the lone true post player at 6-3.

But what they lack in size, they typically make up for with speed and quickness.

“We have a lot of speed as a team,” Koland said. “We have a pretty good basketball IQ, and we know how to play together as a team and how each other plays.”

“We really haven’t (played a taller team) yet,” Gormley said. “We play Rossville, and they’re not necessarily taller, but they’re just physical. We’ll play against taller teams when we get in league.”

Not that Gormley or his players are overly concerned about matchups, though Bennington’s size proved problematic last year in their playoff loss.

“We can put five out and play, so we try, like any team, to play the matchups to our favor,” Gormley said. “We try to mitigate the size differential and force you to take your bigger players and get make them to play out on the perimeter.”

The key, Tuttle said, is keeping taller teams from getting comfortable in the half court.

“We try to pressure the ball as much as we can and get deflections to play in transition and get ahead of the defense.”

The Knights also rely on the 3-point shot in half-court situations.

“We try to spread them and force the defense to cover sideline-to-sideline, out to 25 feet, as much as we possibly can,” Gormley said. “Will has been one of the better 3-point shooters in 2A over the last two years, but there’s not a starter that doesn’t have the green light to shoot.

“It’s the great equalizer when you have guys who can shoot it, because now they have to chase us all over.”

As was the case last year, Sacred Heart faces a stiff challenge to get back to the state tournament. They are part of a 16-team Elbing sub-state that includes No. 2-ranked Moundridge, host Berean Academy at No. 5, No. 6 Bennington, and No. 7 Republic County.

“We’ve just got to continually work to get better,” Gormley said. “We shoot the three well, we drive the ball well, but we can get even better.”

“Defensively, I think we’re ahead of where we were last year. We’ve just got to show up and practice every day and play hard. It’s kind of a cliché answer, but I think it’s really finding little ways, micro ways, to get better.”