Metropolitan School District of North Posey County

And, uh, this definitely looks to be one of those ones that's gonna be decided by those later runners.

It does, and on the girls' side there, Heritage Hills is 61st state ranked, 67 for Gibson Southern, 74 for North Posey, and Reitz might find themselves on the outside at 91.

Th- that's, that's six teams in the top 91.

That's a pretty good-

So if I, as Paul Knottig, can go out and teach a student to play basketball and, and teach them how to shoot or whatever that is, and I get paid to do that, that would be perfectly fine because I'm profiting off my name and my ability to play the game.

But if I go out there and say that I'm Paul Knottig, basketball player at North Posey High School, then I can't...

I-- we don't permit that because you're selling something that the student doesn't own.

The school owns that name.

Because it was so formative in my life.

And then to, to go into the gym, and the gym's full, and you ...

North Posey, we wore the candy stripe pants like the Indiana Hoosiers wore at the time.

And, and to be able to do that was just so special, and you just looked for it.

Along the way, the Vikings built their identity around unselfish basketball, disciplined defense, toughness, and finding ways to win.

For Heath, this championship was another chapter in a coaching journey that has included stops at North Posey and Evansville Memorial, as well as experience as an assistant coach at programs including Bloomington South and Evansville Harrison.

He has now accumulated 14 seasons as a head coach and more than 180 career victories.

After a season like this, there are a lot of questions worth asking.

That's a tough question.

[laughs]

But we do a full court passing drill called Pacer Passing and one of our assistants at North Posey, he brought this to us and our guys hate the drill.

They do not like it, but by the end of the year they do understand and appreciate how much better it makes them.

I was there for five years, a Catholic school, just an outstanding academic institution.

And then before that, I got my first head coaching job at North Posey High School.

I was there for eight years.

And then prior to that, I was an assistant at several stops, including Evansville Harrison, Bloomington South, Eastern Green, Evansville North.

He looked back at our team and he'd say, let's go find out.

And so that's something that I carried with me.

I thought if I said, let's go find out at North Posey, we were going to win every game.

Well, it wasn't that easy.