Tayt Vincent is Sioux Valley basketball.

Literally.

The Register Player of the Year has spent his entire life as a Cossack.

He overcame a couple obstacles and will go down as one of the all-time greats in school history.

“Tayt became the face of our program over his career,” Sioux Valley coach Bill Vincent said about the six-time letter winner and five-year starter. “He was our leader on and off the court. He has made a lasting impact on the youth of our program and our communities.”

He certainly did, but it wasn’t easy.

Vincent bounced back from a pair of ACL tears – one immediately following his seventh-grade season and the other early in his sophomore campaign (which cost him a majority of the year) to shatter numerous Cossack career records:

Points – 1,837. Assists – 511. Steals – 241. 3-pointers – 247 (fourth-most in state history). Free-throw percentage – 84.3% (350-of-415).

“It’s hard to think that it’s over already,” he said. “It seems like just the other day I was asked to come up and practice with the varsity in seventh grade.

“But now to sit back and think that it’s over is just kind of surreal. You don’t really think that it’s over; you think there’s another game coming up or something. But when you look back at it, it was a lot of fun and I guess I’m ready for the next chapter now.”

In his senior season, No. 13 – a 6-foot-3 kid that plays both guard positions – averaged 22.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 3.5 steals per game.

The Cossacks, who ended up with a 19-3 record this season, had the top seed in the Sweet 16 before suffering a tough loss in the game to go to state.

Despite that, it was still a good year. The Cossacks scored a school-record 80.8 points per outing.

“I really enjoyed it,” Vincent said of the season. “It was a lot of fun being around the guys and getting to be a part of the team. We got to be more like a family in the end and it was a lot of fun to be around those guys the whole season.”

As for the high-octane offense, he added: “We were out there enjoying each other’s company on the floor. Even off the floor it spread, too; but on the floor we were just together through everything and enjoyed it a lot – moving the ball everywhere, zipping the ball around I guess, and we liked to play fast. So that was a lot of fun for us to do.”

Playing for “Pops”

Bill Vincent became the head boys’ basketball coach at Sioux Valley for the 1997-98 season; Tayt was born later on in 1998.

That makes Tayt a lifelong Cossack.

As for playing for his father, Tayt will enjoy the memories.

“A lot of fun,” he said. “I enjoyed every minute of it.

“Getting to share my dream also with him and getting to spend a lot of extra time with him – even if maybe we weren’t getting along every day at practice or some of that. But getting to share my dreams with him, just that, there is a lot of enjoyment there for me.”

Overcoming obstacles

Vincent handled the pair of ACL injuries in stride, despite the second setback costing him almost an entire season as a sophomore in 2014-15.

“The first one was hard and then you think, well, ‘I got this out of the way,’ but then you have the second one and kind of having to take another step back,” he said. “But the second went a little easier knowing what was coming and knowing there’s still a future in being able to overcome that; and just being able to get back out there and really missing that.

“It really makes you appreciate what you have going on out there; it makes you want to get back for that.”

Big gamer

Vincent closed the regular season by hitting a school-record-tying nine 3-pointers and scoring 39 points in a win at Garretson.

He went a combined 21-of-30 from 3-point range in his final three high school games, including a contested buzzer-beater to force overtime against Dakota Valley in the Sweet 16 – a game in which he finished 8-of-15 from long range while scoring 27 points.

“The bigger the game, the better he played,” added Coach Vincent.

Vincent scored 32 points in a regular-season matchup with Madison, which ended up placing second at state.

Other stats

Vincent shot 56 percent from the field, including 43.8 percent (61-of-193) from deep, this year. He connected at a school-record 87.6-percent clip (78-of-89) from the free-throw line.

Vincent holds the single-game school-record for steals with 14, set earlier this year. He posted a quadruple-double in a game this season.

He started for the Cossacks’ state tournament teams in 2014 (sixth place) and 2016 (fifth place).

Vincent is a four-time All-Register selection.

All-State

He was a second-team performer as a freshman in 2014 and on the first team last season as a junior.

This year’s team will be released on Wednesday.

Off to Augustana

“I really hit it off with their coaches and players there, and I really enjoyed the people that go there,” Vincent said. “Besides the program and the basketball part of it, the school itself I really enjoyed. And the campus is not too big; I kind of like to keep it a little smaller, I guess, with smaller classroom sizes. But just the program, I felt like it was a really good fit and the people I am going to be with are a lot of fun.”