The stands will be packed when the basketball boys (16-4 overall, 2-2 district) play at rival Flower Mound Marcus (20-2 , 4-0) tonight at 7:30 p.m. According to the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, Marcus is ranked 12th in class 5A. Lewisville is ranked 16th.

“It’s going to be a dogfight,” head coach Gary Collier said. “It’s the intensity, I love that. I’m hoping that the crowd will be crazy and the game will be enthusiastic and filled with a lot of emotions. Those are the games, as a player, I enjoy playing, and hopefully they’ll enjoy playing it also.”

Collier has stopped looking at the rankings, and for their mental sake, has told his players to stop looking at it as well.

“I think that was one of the biggest parts of our downfall,” Collier said. “I think we had looked at the rankings and got complacent and we weren’t as hungry. We didn’t play as hungry as we did before, because before we played like we had something to prove.”

Last year the Farmers were victorious against the Marauders 46-37, giving the team a good idea of what to expect offensively and defensively.

“Defensively, they’re gonna play a lot of zone against us,” Collier said. “Offensively, they got one really good player, moved in this year, he’s pretty good. We’ve got to do a good job containing him and hopefully he doesn’t have a good game.”

Collier said Marcus owes a lot of its success to team confidence.

“When a team shows a lot of confidence, it’s one of those things that you’ve got to do some things to rattle that confidence, by making baskets and getting stops,” Collier said.

Two Marauders who are top names on the stat sheet are senior Xavier Adams and junior Michael Mayhew.

Adams has had 405 points so far, averaging to 19.3 points per game. While Mayhew has only had 249 points so far, he has made 33 3-point shots, averaging out to 1.8 per game.

On Tuesday, the boys lost to Flower Mound 58-55, a game Collier said should have been won.

“It was a close game again this year,” Collier said “It’s a tough loss. It’s a loss we’ve got to overcome. We’ve got to bounce back and put it behind us.”

Collier said he still believes the Farmers are still the best team in the district, but the team is not playing like they are.

“For some reason, we’re a much different team now than we were at the earlier part of the season,” Collier said. “We’re not knocking down shots. We’re not rebounding like we should. All the things that we were doing at a normal consistent basis at the beginning of the year, we’re not doing as consistently right now.”

Collier said a Farmer win tonight would be a confidence boost for the team.

“We’ve got to go in and play hard, and play tough, and play to win,” Collier said.