GOREVILLE (WSIL) -- Goreville boys basketball is 18-0.
The latest Associated press poll has the Blackcats ranked third in the state (IL) in Class 1A.
But the recent success hasn't inflated their egos.
"They dont act like it. They come out ready to play every night. They play hard and that's our key. We've always stressed about playing hard. You play hard, good things happen. And good things have happened for this team," Goreville Head Coach Todd Tripp said.
"If you're not playing your best you can beat any day so every game you got to play it like it's one game at a time, you don't think about the next one," Goreville senior Trent Glidewell said.
The Blackcats have the best start in school history and their 18 consecutive wins is a school record.
It's nice, but for this group, the victories don't matter if it doesn't add up to a state championship.
"That is what I am thinking about when I am in practice. You are trying to get as good as you can for the end of the season so you are ready for anything that comes at you."
"Our kids still have that bitterness, that taste in their mouth from last years regional final where we got beat at home by Cairo and I don't think they ever got over that and I think that's helped drive this group this summer and now," Tripp said.
Coach Tripp has his team locked in. They are saying all the right things and right not much rattles the Blackcats.
"We have big crowds here so another big crowd doesn't affect us too bad and I feel like we can do a lot of stuff on the floor. You try to take one thing away and we got something else that will counter that so a lot of things go in our favor a lot of times," Glidewell said.
"Just the drive we all have, we know when we have to pick it up and if not our teammates tell us when we need to pick it up so that's good our teammates try to coach us too," Goreville senior Landon Albright said.
" We come in here every day and it's like nothing is missing, we've got everything going for us and we work hard every single day so you really don't need a coach to tell us that, we have it in us," Goreville senior Luke Brown said.
That moxie has made the Blackcats the talk of the town
"You go up town to eat breakfast in the morning, all the old guys in there are talking about it so they've got more questions now. How good is this next team or what do we need to do next time," Tripp said.
"Honestly it's awesome. I love coming in here game nights and you just see everyone here and the whole town kind of knows everybody and it's cool when you walk in anywhere and they know who you are, it's living the dream," Brown said.
"You see more and more people couple to the games and you see more people comment on Facebook or whatever that you may not have seen come to games before which makes it real fun."
