TIFTON, Ga. — This afternoon’s Tift County versus Americus-Sumter games won’t quite be on the level of a family feud, but the sides do have several close connections.

Dr. Eric Holland, Tift County’s head boys basketball coach, started his high school coaching career in Americus. His wife, Melissa, is a native of the city. Chris Wade, one of Holland’s assistants, is a former Americus High basketball coach and was a longtime offensive coordinator at Americus-Sumter.

“We’re kind of like family,” said Holland. Further, he said that he considered Lady Panthers coach Sherri Harris to be like a sister to him.

The Blue Devils and Lady Devils face off with the Panthers starting at 12:45 p.m. in Atlanta’s Philips Arena.

The Devils are playing their third game in the arena, but this will be a first for the Lady Devils.

Tift head coach Julie Conner said her team was excited to play in Atlanta.

Americus-Sumter, however, will present another challenge. The Lady Devils battled their way to a two-point loss to one of the state’s best teams in Pelham and had a hard overtime victory over Brunswick Friday.

The Lady Panthers are a season removed from a Class AAAA championship and a 31-1 record. Conner said that leading scorer A’tyanna Gaulden had graduated (and now plays for Florida State), but Americus remained a top-notch program.

“They’re going to press,” said Conner, and show “lots of defensive intensity.” She said the squad was “the whole package.” Conner has seen plenty of pressing lately, from both Pelham and Brunswick. She believes that it will instrumental for the postseason.

The Lady Panthers are 8-2, pending a Tuesday game against Apalachee. Tift is 10-3. Americus-Sumter’s losses have come via St. Francis and Columbus.

They have shared few common opponents. There is Crisp County, whom Tift scrimmaged to start the season, as well as Lee County. The Lady Devils split with Lee for the season; Americus-Sumter has won all three meetings, but the last one was by a 40-39 score.

Timia Swanson leads Americus-Sumter with a 16.6 points per game average, according to MaxPreps. After missing the first five games of the season with an injury, Audrey McElhaney has averaged 14.5 points for Tift. Joslyn Reyes is leading in overall scoring with 126 points and a 9.7 average per game.

Americus-Sumter’s boys are 9-1, having only fallen to Crisp County. Like the Lady Panthers, they were also set to play Apalachee Tuesday. Among their wins has been a 30-point decision over Webster County and a 12-point victory over Columbus.

Though Holland has long been a basketball institution in South Georgia, he said that amazingly, this would only be the second time he had faced off against his old school. The previous meeting came in 2008, when he was still coaching at Turner County.

The Blue Devils are 12-1 for the 2016-17 season. Preston Horne is leading in scoring with 23.6 points per game. Fred Lloyd is averaging 10.2 and Micah Johnson, 9.8.

In previous Philips Arena games, Tift’s boys have defeated Irwin County and Wilkinson County.

Following the games, the Tift squads will be in Atlanta the remainder of the day before they attend the 7:30 p.m. game between the Atlanta Hawks and New York Knicks.