A magnificent season for Keota Eagle boys’ basketball will now take the postseason stage as Keota starts the Class 1A Substate 6 playoffs by hosting English Valleys tonight in a game you can hear on KCII. Keota earned the top seed in District 11 by virtue of a perfect regular season, going 21-0 on their way to being ranked sixth in the state in Class 1A.

The Eagles have been a dominant bunch, beating opponents by an average of 34 points per game. Senior Sawyer Stout is a scoring sensation who puts up 21-and-a-half points per contest, while point guard Cole Kindred is an all-around force who averages nearly 10 points, four rebounds, six assists and 2.5 steals a game.

Mix in the development of junior forward Billie Kindred, who is averaging a double-double of nearly 12 points and 11 rebounds, and the depth provided by seniors Evan Vittetoe and Tanner Waterhouse, and you can see why Keota has only lost four games in the last two years. But, as good as they’ve been, Eagles head coach Dan Stout tells KCII Sports he believes there are little ways that they still get sharper.

“One of the things we really stressed Thursday and Friday is our offensive movement,” Stout says. “[We were] making sure that we’re getting screens set on bodies. We kind of got away from trying to get our guys open by using screens. We’ve been doing it a lot off the dribble. That’s something we came back and really focused on these last couple days in practice, making sure our offense is fluid with setting screens on bodies.”

Keota will be facing an English Valleys team that is 3-20 and that they’ve already beaten by over 50 points twice this season. You can hear Eagle playoff basketball this evening on 106.1 FM KCII and streaming on KCIIradio.com, with pregame coverage beginning at 6:30.