NAMPA — Sometimes there are no surprises. Sometimes Goliath annihilates David. Sometimes, when teams like top-seeded Hillcrest take on ones like second-seeded Pocatello on the state tournament stage, there is no magic, no upset brewing.

So when the Knights completed a 76-46 win over the Thunder in Saturday’s 4A state championship game here at the Idaho Center, the players in the navy and red laundry looked somber. Their season had just ended. They came devastatingly close to the goal they spent hundreds of days working toward.

But in the days ahead, when their eyes dry and they zoom out on the season, the Thunder might smile. The truth is that even with this loss, Pocatello did more for this boys basketball program than any team across the last decade. Before this season, the Thunder had not booked a spot at the state tournament since 2009. That record has evaporated like mist.

In its place might be a second-place plaque, but the team that won first looked the part all season long — and all game long. Hillcrest, widely considered one of the best teams in all of Idaho, thrashed Pocatello with weapons the Thunder had never seen: 6-foot-7 bruiser Isaac Davis posted 18 points and 11 rebounds. Speedy guard Cooper Kesler tallied 18 points. His brother, Kobe Kesler, recorded 20 points on three triples. All told, the Knights cashed eight long balls, burying the Thunder under the weight of shots that ranged from back-breakers to back-destroyers.

“We were trying to decide if we wanted to double him or not. We were kinda switching it up,” Pocatello coach Joe Green said. “If we didn’t, he scored, and he’s got shooters around him. He’s really good at finding them. So they’re a complete team, and they were really tough tonight.”

“Davis causes a matchup problem,” added Pocatello guard Julian Bowie, who scored 19 points on 21 shots. “You gotta send more than one guy at him, and once you do that, they’ve got shooters everywhere. So he’s a big problem.”

Davis and the Knights became problems right away. Hillcrest scored seven points before Pocatello scored one. They used a 10-0 run to take a 21-4 lead. Even when Bowie capped the first quarter with a layup, that only trimmed Hillcrest’s lead to 23-8.

No Pocatello run closed the gap. Senior Matt Christensen did use a putback to slice the Hillcrest lead to 25-12, but then, the Knights turned around and rattled off the following sequence: Cooper Kesler bucket. Eric Patterson free throw. And a breakaway dunk from Davis, who flushed the ball so violently that you wondered if the rim might come down and shatter the glass.

So for the Thunder, those trends never quite went away. Pocatello shot just 31% for the game. Bowie didn’t shoot particularly efficiently, and neither did senior guard Ryan Payne, who managed five points on 11 shots. If the Thunder were going to find a way to win, the recipe was always going to involve Payne and Bowie, Pocatello’s electric duo that torched dozens of opponents all season. They needed to deliver some of their best basketball to help the Thunder capture this one.

Instead, they rarely found the looks that led to those kinds of nights. Davis and the Keslers led the Knights’ charge on offense, but they also kept Payne and Bowie in front of them on defense. Even when the Thunder found ways into the lane, they had trouble getting shots off over Davis, himself an imposing threat in the paint. Rarely has Pocatello run into an issue like him. The Thunder made just 4 of 20 shots from beyond the arc.

“We just missed the ones that we usually make,” Payne said. “I missed a bunch of right-by-the-rim shots and it’s in-and-out. We had some missed 3s. We just missed shots that we usually make.”

In that way, the only true mistake Pocatello made in this game was playing it against Hillcrest. This season, the Knights never lost to an Idaho team. They ended the year on a 24-game winning streak. Up and down their roster are guys brimming with athleticism, with basketball smarts, with shot-making abilities that, when they’re on, are all but impossible to dethrone.

Combine that with the new standard the Thunder have established and you realize, long term, what this season does for Pocatello.

“I’m just really proud of them. I thought they brought back something to Pocatello basketball that hasn’t been there for a long time,” Green said. “I thought they restored some of that Poky pride. I just love them as guys.”

That’s when, deep in a hallway at the Idaho Center, Green motioned down at his son, six-year-old Jaden. The blonde-haired toddler wore a blue and red jersey to support his older buddies. That, Green says, is what this season does for the Thunder’s program. “He gets to grow up in the gym with those guys,” Green said, “and they’re good influences on him.”

Someday, Jaden might trade his Allen Iverson jersey for a Pocatello one. By then, his dad hopes, these trips to state will have become the norm. When the Thunder of the future talk about playing in the Idaho Center, they’ll reminisce on last year, not a season they were never around for. They’ll remember more seasons like these, when Pocatello captured the 4A District 5 tournament crown and dispatched opponents like they were swatting flies.

Players like Payne, a senior, are passing the keys to teammates like Bowie, a sophomore. If that reality comes to fruition, if Pocatello becomes the state power it looked like all season, Bowie will likely engineer it.

For now, though, he gets a break. So Bowie and Payne ducked out of the hallway and walked back around the court, where the Thunder fell one step short of their goals for this season, but established several new ones for years to come.