Boys Basketball Travels to McPherson Tournament

The first round of the annual McPherson Invitational varsity basketball tournament begins Thursday.

Eight teams compete in the tournament. The Lancers will face Blue Valley West in their first game at 3 p.m at the McPherson High School Roundhouse.

This is the second tournament the Lancers have entered this season. The first, the Championship Showdown in early December, ended in a seventh place finish for the Lancers. The 6-3 Lancers have only lost one of their five games since that tournament.

Tournaments during the season give the Lancers opportunities to play teams they normally would not encounter until the postseason.

“We gain a sense of where we stand compared to teams outside of the Sunflower League,” senior Gunnar Englund said. “You don’t know who you are going to play so you can’t really prepare for [individual teams].”

McPherson enters as the number one seed, followed by Manhattan. The final rounds of the tournament are on Saturday.