Leavenworth ? Lawrence High’s boys basketball team might just be the most formidable sub-.500 bunch in all of Class 6A entering sub-state play.

Sure, the Lions finished the regular season 9-11 overall and in ninth place in the Sunflower League. A closer look, though, reveals LHS finally playing its best basketball of the season, and not a moment too soon.

Lawrence has won three of its last four games, including Friday night’s thriller at Free State High in the regular-season finale.

The lone loss during that span?

A 54-52 setback against Leavenworth High two weeks ago – the same Pioneers team Lawrence faces on the road at 7 tonight in the opening round of sub-state. But No. 7 seed Lawrence hardly seems concerned with playing the No. 2 seed in its bracket. After all, that close loss two weeks ago might have been the turning point of Lawrence’s season.

“You could see it coming,” Lions coach Chris Davis said. “Our game plan against them was really effective, and I think our guys right now definitely believe in what’s going on. They saw how well they could play, and now the ball is rolling the way we want it to.”

LHS center John Schneider said his team took something from that game that cannot be measured by wins and losses: confidence. So much of it, in fact, that Lions point guard Dorian Green has said if he were an opposing team, he wouldn’t want to face Lawrence at this juncture.

Davis said he knew it would take time to find the right chemistry with a team that only had two players – Schneider and Green – that saw significant varsity minutes last season.

“We had a lot to learn before we were ready to just play,” Davis said. “The guys are getting to the point now where they don’t think anymore, they just know what to do when certain things happen.”

One player clearly on Lawrence’s radar must be Caprest Rhone, who torched the Lions for 25 points in the teams’ first matchup. Rhone also scored all 15 points for Leavenworth in the opening quarter.

The Lions, meanwhile, will need contributions from the nine regulars in their rotation – all of whom scored at least once against Leavenworth.

A victory against the Pioneers, and LHS could be looking at a third showdown with crosstown rival Free State.

And in case Lawrence needed any more motivation, it was Leavenworth that pounded the Lions, 69-48, to end their season in the playoffs a year ago.

“They knocked us out of sub-state last year,” Schneider said, “so I’d like to do the same thing to them.”