TIFTON — Celebration has been going on in Tift County following the Blue Devils taking the Class AAAAAAA basketball championship at Georgia Tech March 11.

Rings have been sized, the team has been feted at the Chamber of Commerce and with a parade, and championship T-shirts are on sale. Over the last four years, the team went 111-10, with two state titles and the best four-year span in boys basketball history at the school.

“We’ve enjoyed it for two weeks,” said head coach Dr. Eric Holland. “When we come back from spring break, we’ll be right back in the gym.

It’s been a long championship coming.

Before winning the Region 1 crown, Tift lost to Lowndes, its first region loss in three years. Oddly, it meant they nearly mirrored the 2014 season, which was their last championship.

Tift had to get through the top teams in the state to win the title — Newton, McEachern and Norcross. And when the final rankings were posted, Tift was No. 1 and the other three made up the top four. Berkmar, who the Devils dispatched in the second round, checked in at No. 8.

“We beat four teams in the top 10,” said Holland. “How about that?”

Tift did it despite tough odds. Not just in the rankings, but in simple numbers. They only played six players in the semifinals and the finals. Against Norcross in the championship, Preston Horne, Micah Johnson, Fred Lloyd and Rashod Bateman did not sit, playing all 32 minutes.

Holland said he knew his players were strong enough to do so.

That was even more important this season after Horne went down last year with an ACL injury. Horne bounced back in six months. The only other player he could think of that did that was running back Adrian Peterson.

Holland credits the trainers and doctors who have kept them going, as well as his assistants.

Lots of credit, of course, goes to the players on the floor, particularly the team’s five seniors, Horne, Johnson, Lloyd, Jay Johnson and Camden Collins.

“Best seniors I’ve ever coached. Best kids I’ve ever coached,” he said.

Holland has one condition for the future. When the Tift County Athletic Hall of Fame inducts Micah Johnson, Lloyd or Horne, the others must be included on the basis of winning two state championships.

“It’s a requirement,” he said.

Holland credits Collins for helping bringing the team together.

“He was a big part of our bonding,” he said.

Players would go over to Collins’ house “and laugh and have a good time,” said Holland.

“They turned into brothers,” he said.

One of the more satisfying parts of winning it all, said Holland, is their origins.

All Tift County kids, with no major basketball transfers in the bunch during their high school years.

“These kids came from right here in this neighborhood,” he said. “They live in our community. They were able to deliver something to this community that will last a lifetime. They did it with class.”

The lack of major transfers is different than many of the metro Atlanta schools. Two of Norcross’ top players, for example, came over during their high school years from Meadowcreek High.

The higher profile names and teams from the northern half of Georgia may have caused the rest of the state to not pay much attention to Tift.

“They slept on us in 2004 (when the Devils were state runners-up),” Holland said. “In 2014, we stung them.”

This year, “Anything they stuck in front of us, we proved to the state and we proved to the nation we’re a program to be reckoned with,” he said.

That still doesn’t always mean respect in the nation’s eyes.

DICK’S Sporting Goods snubbed them for a spot in its national tournament. Tift failed to get an invite for being an Adidas team in a Nike-heavy tournament, according to Holland, and because of a previous loss to Montverde Academy, according to USA Today Sports.

Holland believes that had Norcross or another team won state, they would have gotten an invite (Norcross also wears Adidas).

“We still don’t get the respect we deserve. I don’t know what else we need to do to prove we’re worthy of those invites, just like the other schools up north.”

Southern teams were quite competitive for state championships in 2017. One little group from Christmastime was especially fruitful.

Four teams from Tifton’s McDonald’s Invitational were state finalists. Tift’s boys and Pelham’s girls won and the Brunswick and Morgan County boys were runners-up. While not southern, fellow competitor McEachern’s boys were a semifinalist, losing to the Devils.

“That’s really special,” Holland said. “That was pretty impressive.”

The Blue Devils’ theme song was the 1988 New Edition track, “Boys to Men.”

“Basically they changed in their mindset. Their way of thinking, their walk with the Lord, how they carry themselves, how they attack different decisions every day,” he said.

“They take time to process information,” said Holland. “They’re never in a hurry.”

As seniors, he said his players changed from boys to men. “Not because of their age,” said Holland, “but the decisions they were making. Responsible decisions.”

State won’t just change their lives, said Holland, but also of those in the community.

“They definitely changed my life as a coach,” he said.

“This group did a lot of good for a lot of people.”

There were several promotional nights at games, including ones for lupus, for breast cancer awareness and tributes for Austin and Alton Dawson.

Fans were behind them all the way.

“Big shoutout to the Tifton community,” Holland said. “Not just here in Tifton, but in the Atlanta area we had so many fans.”

Holland doesn’t think that they could have won without them. He was really happy that all the support was positive.

“When they said, ‘come on boys, we can do it,’ that pushed our boys to do better,” he said.

“I can’t be more proud as a coach, that I coached for a community that really understands that we needed them as positive as they possibly can be for our boys and they were that.”