It has often been said to never judge a book by its cover.
For Junction City, that means focusing on a Murfreesboro squad that has played well down the stretch.
Tonight, the Dragons (16-8) and Rattlers (10-17) collide in the first round of the 2A South Regional Tournament at Fordyce with the winner clinching a spot in the state tournament.
Game time is set for 8:30 p.m.
The Dragons, winners of seven straight, are the 8-2A’s No. 1 seed, while the Rattlers are the 7-2A’s No. 4 seed.
Murfreesboro saw their four-game winning streak end with a loss to Dierks in the semifinals of the district tournament.
“They’ve got a couple of kids that can shoot the ball from outside,” Junction City coach Kendall Hutcheson said of the Rattlers.
“They’ve got a good point guard who moved in I believe from Nashville that’s about 6-3, handles the ball real well, runs the team real well for them. On defense, they like to play man-to-man a lot. They try to get up and press you a little bit. They’re going to get after you on defense.”
The Rattlers started off the season with an 0-10 record, but have gone 10-7 since then, and Hutcheson said his team mirrors Murfreesboro in that aspect.
“You can look at us and say pretty much the same thing,” Hutcheson said. “Halfway through the season, we’re sitting at .500. After 17 games, we’re 9-8. Then all of a sudden, you look at our final record, and it’s like we started out 9-8, and we went 7-0 at the end of the year.
“They’ve gotten better, and every coach I’ve talked to on that side has said they’ve gotten better and improved as the year has gone along.
“They’re playing pretty good ball right now. Mount Ida beat them during the regular season, but at the end of the year, they’re playing better and they handled business. They’ve definitely improved as the season has gone along.”
Junction City seems to be hitting its stride at the right time of the year.
Since falling to Bearden on Jan. 27, the Dragons have won eight of nine games with their lone loss being a 55-52 setback to Parkers Chapel.
At the district tournament, the Dragons topped Spring Hill, Fordyce and Harmony Grove on successive days to win the title.
“At this time of year here at Junction, hopefully we’re just coming into our best play,” Hutcheson said.
“We kind of get behind everybody else as far as games played. Over the last week-and-a-half to two weeks, we’ve really started picking up our play and playing really well.
“I thought during the district tournament, the guys played really good basketball and are peaking at the right time, we hope.”
A year ago, Junction City won the regional tournament, but was upended as a No. 1 seed in the first round of the state tournament.
Now the Dragons find themselves in the same spot at the regional tournament, but Hutcheson said he wasn’t going to remind his team of what happened a year ago.
“The guys know what happened last year and know how we played last year,” Hutcheson said. “We turned it over at the regional tournament, and we really didn’t play that great at the district tournament. We never really had that where you felt like every game we were getting better.
“I think there’s a sense of urgency with this team. They understand what’s at stake. It’s just like after we won the district tournament, everybody was happy about winning the district, but in the locker room, everybody was talking about how disappointed with how we played and didn’t think we played very well.
“The guys are getting to the point now where winning doesn’t make them happy if they don’t play well, and that’s all you can hope for as a team that you concentrate more on how well you play instead of worrying about winning and losing.
“They’ve got their mind right. They know what they’re looking to do. We just have to come out and take care of us and let everything else fall into place.”