One of Class 6A’s top boys basketball teams tonight will experience something it hasn’t in more than a month: a loss.

Olathe East, led by the tandem of 6-foot-7 brothers Ezra and Josiah Talbert, will bring a 7-1 record and a No. 4 ranking to Lawrence High’s gym at 7 tonight.

The Lions, also 7-1 and ranked No. 5 in 6A by Kpreps.com, lost to the Hawks, 69-59, last season at LHS. Ezra scored 26 points in that game and is averaging 14.0 points per game so far in his senior season. Josiah, a sophomore, averages 5.8 ppg.

“The Talbert brothers are really tough. They’ve got great guards playing around them,” Lions coach Mike Lewis said. “They just got a lot of balance, and they’ve got a really good team.”

LHS doesn’t have much height in the post, with 6-foot-3 sophomore Price Morgan usually guarding opposing centers.

Instead, the Lions will rely on their athletic guards — sophomore Justin Roberts, junior Anthony Bonner and junior John Barbee — to get the ball out in transition. Last year, O-East played a zone and was able to limit Lawrence’s offense by dictating the tempo throughout most of the game.

“It has that Syracuse feel,” said Lewis, referring to Syracuse University’s trademark zone defense, which is consistently among the top defenses in the country. “They don’t have very much space around them. There’s not very many gaps. That’s a defense that (Olathe) coach (Jim) Super feels that puts them at an advantage, and we’ll have to be prepared for zone looks.”

Barbee added: “We’re going to have to move the ball more and make them shift a lot more.”

East features strong guard play, highlighted by seniors Caelan Neal and Justin Matthews. Neal is averaging a team-high 16.3 points per game. Yet it’s the height difference that Lawrence will need to overcome for a win.

LHS beat Shawnee Mission West on Tuesday in large part due to its aggressive defense, which forced turnovers and created offense.

“We’re not going to be able to match their height,” Lewis said. “We are going to be at the advantage in other categories. We’re always going to be able to play aggressive, play hard and fight for loose balls, not to let their height take a huge impact on the game.”

In the Sunflower League, there aren’t many, if any, easy games. While the Lions don’t circle their calendars to prepare for top opponents, they know they’ll need to come out with energy to beat the top teams in the league.

“We per se don’t have a huge rivalry with them or anything like that, but we know they’re a good team, and we feel like we’re a good team,” Lewis said. “So that’s enough motivation to keep us going in the right direction.”