Lawrence High coach Mike Lewis gets his players in position for an in bounds play during the sub-state championship game Friday night at LHS. The Lions defeated the Shawnee Mission East Lancers, 60-45. The win propelled the Lions into the state tournament, which begins on Wednesday at Koch Arena on the campus of Wichita State.

Lawrence High’s boys basketball coach Mike Lewis told his team at the beginning of sub-state play to think of the next two weeks as a five-game tournament.

Two down and three to go.

After two wins in sub-state, the Lions will face Wichita South at 6:30 p.m. today in the Class 6A state tournament quarterfinals at Koch Arena in Wichita. The winner will play at 8:15 p.m. Friday in the semifinals against the winner of Shawnee Mission North and Derby.

The Lions (21-1) are expected to have senior guard Anthony Bonner back on the court after he missed the sub-state championship game against Shawnee Mission East with a mild concussion. But winning such a big game without Bonner, who averages 19 points per game, has given the Lions some extra confidence heading into this week.

“They are excited to have this opportunity and just to say that they’re going to state,” Lewis said. “But they’re also not content with just taking the bus trip down to Wichita. We’re going down there to win three basketball games.”

Lewis was an assistant coach when the Lions made their last trip to the state tournament in 2008. LHS took second place, losing in the state title game to Wichita Southeast, 88-67.

“I look back at that quite a bit,” Lewis said. “It was a great learning experience for me on just how far a team can go when they can really get on a roll in a two-week time period. A lot of this is about momentum and playing well at the right time. I feel like we’re playing good basketball, and we’ve been playing well over the past couple of weeks.”

Following their sub-state title on Friday, the Lions met Sunday for a shootaround before going to Morningstar’s NY Pizza to spend time together on the one-year mark that assistant coach Kermit Aldridge died of cancer.

“The main message was really just not to overlook any teams,” junior guard Anthony Harvey said. “Even though we’re the two-seed, there’s still good teams out there, especially Wichita South. Remember what got us here, remember coach Aldridge and (Sunday) was a year ago that he died. We just got together, ate some pizza, smiled and just remembered why we’re here — the big purpose what we’re doing this for.”

The seventh-seeded Titans (15-7) are led by coach Chuck Gunter’s son, junior guard Dawson Gunter, who averages a team-high 13 points per game. They also have 6-foot-6 senior forward Daran Lee, who averaged more than 10 points per game.

The Lions are confident against any team they’re up against and are proud of what they’ve accomplished this year. They went undefeated in the Sunflower League, which has three other teams in the state field, and they’ve won nine straight games. But they’re not ready to close the book on this season without winning three more games.

“Anytime you’ve won 21 games and you lost that tight one by a few points and had a chance to win it, you look back at your season and can say you’ve had a good season,” Lewis said. “But we’re definitely not content with where we’re at. We’ve got a goal of making it to that state championship game and seeing if we can walk out with a state championship.”