Picture courtesy of Tanner Colvin

For a group that had experienced precious little success in the Salina Invitational Tournament, the Salina South boys basketball team made up for it in a big way.

The Cougar senior class, which won a total of three SIT games the three previous season, doubled that total Monday night with an emphatic 63-39 blowout of Great Bend in the championship game at Kansas Wesleyan’s Mabee Arena.

“It feels really great, especially doing it with my guys,” said South senior center Gavin DeVoe, who was named most valuable player and one of three Cougar seniors on the all-tournament team. “We’ve been working really hard, and obviously it was great playing our rivals (Salina Central) last night and then coming in and playing a pretty good Great Bend team.”

South senior Gavin DeVoe

“It’s definitely big for us. It sends us in with some momentum to finish off the rest of the season strong.”

By dominating against Great Bend, a team they needed overtime to beat on Jan. 6, the Cougars improved to 11-4 on the season. To put that in perspective, they won 11 games total in the three previous years combined.

“It’s a lot of fun. I’m happy for those guys,” South coach Jason Hooper said of his six seniors, four of whom start while the other two play significant reserve roles. “They’ve been through a lot of adversity the last couple of years, and to leave here champions, that’s a big notch in their belt and shows a lot of growth and maturity out of all those guys.”

South head coach Jason Hooper

After a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by backup junior guard Kaden Stauffer gave the Cougars a 27-20 halftime advantage, they blew it open with a big third quarter and never looked back. Junior Kobie Henley, who missed the first-round victory over Wichita South on Thursday and was limited in Friday’s 58-53 semifinal decision against Salina Central, led a balanced South scoring attack with 13 points.

The Cougars got 11 points each from all-tournament selections DeVoe, who also had eight rebounds, and Easton Wilcox who drained three of his four 3-point tries. All-tournament pick Jaxon Myers directed the offense and scored all six of his points in a 22-13 third quarter.

“We’ve always been a united team,” said Henley, who finally was healthy after a week-long battle with the flu. “We knew coming into this season that we were going to have to be if we really wanted to play our best basketball.”

South junior Kobie Henley

“We’ve all got to be united together with all five of us, so we really got that done today.”

The Cougars got solid contributions across the board, shooting 53.4% and knocking down 8 of 11 3-pointers. They also held No. 3 seed Great Bend (8-7) to 37.2% and 3 of 17 from the 3-point line.

“When all the pieces click together for us, we’re pretty hard to guard, because Gavin demands so much attention inside,” Hooper said of the 6-foot-7 DeVoe. “And then you’ve got shooters all around him that if we get him going on the same night, it’s going to be probably a tough night for the team we’re playing.”

“Tonight was one of those nights. It was a great team effort.”

Wilcox, who was on target the entire tournament and made six 3-pointers over the final two rounds, made the most of his limited opportunities.

“They guarded me pretty heavy, and when I had the space, I wanted to shoot it,” said Wilcox, who was a combined 8-for-13 from the floor in the semifinal and final. “I’ve been hot, so I just want to use my strength and shoot the ball, and hopefully they go in.”

South senior Easton Wilcox

Henley, who also was a defensive stopper for the Cougars, celebrated the victory by the six seniors — DeVoe, Myers, Wilcox, Sawyer Walker, Kyler Webb and Jalen Cheeks — even though he has another year left.

“It’s awesome seeing all my guys who hadn’t won a lot of games,” he said. “They always told me they hadn’t won a lot of games all the way back to middle school, and now to see them finally happy and winning where they should be, they deserve it.

“I do all this for the seniors.”

Not only was the SIT championship South’s first since 2021, but it gives the Cougars some momentum heading into the final month of the regular season. The next test is Friday at home against Goddard Eisenhower.

“We’ve got some big games coming up, and this win gives us motivation to go knock them off,” Wilcox said. “We play a lot of teams that are ranked, so it’s time to show us and show those them that we can play with teams like that.”