TIFTON, Ga. — Dr. Eric Holland thinks this year’s McDonald’s Invitational slate of games might be the greatest ever.

“The best group, the best coaches,” he said.

The annual event starts Thursday, featuring 12 boys teams from across the state and four girls squads, and will last three days.

Hawkinsville and Brunswick tip off the invitational at 11:30 a.m. At 1 p.m. will be a girls pairing between Pelham and Tift County, one Lady Devils head coach Julie Conner said she was looking forward to Friday night.

The remainder of the opening day will be dedicated to boys games, starting with Bainbridge and Brunswick at 2:30 p.m. Valdosta and Duluth will play at 4, McEachern and Monroe at 5:30 p.m., Tucker and Colquitt County at 7 p.m. and Tift and Milton finishing up with an 8:30 p.m. contest.

Milton-Tift will be a rematch from February; the Eagles knocked the Devils out of the state tournament with a last second shot. Both Holland and Milton’s Matt Kramer were eager to schedule the game. Holland said Milton not only wanted to play again, but wanted to do so in the same hostile environment.

Admission will be $8 per day. Holland said tickets could be redeemed at local McDonald’s for an apple pie. The ticket’s value gets even greater Friday, with eight games scheduled. Three games will be played Saturday.

Holland said the price was well worth it, as fans “get to watch beautiful basketball.”

Past McDonald’s Invitationals have been three days, but had been shortened to two over the past few years. Holland said it was expanded to three days this year to add girls games. “We didn’t want to leave anybody out,” he said.

Tift, Brunswick, Pelham and Hawkinsville will all be playing. Fitzgerald was originally slated to take part, but had to cancel. Holland said Fitzgerald had previously signed a contract to appear in another Christmas tournament. The squad’s MaxPreps page has it playing in the Turner County Christmas Tournament.

Pelham was 7-0 through Monday, with a game scheduled Tuesday against Valdosta. The Lady Devils bring the most wins into competition, entering at 9-2. Hawkinsville has the most girls’s state championships of the four teams, with three. Brunswick, though 4-4 through Monday, was a Class AAAAAA semifinalist in 2016.

Boys teams involved are Tift, Milton, Tucker, Bainbridge, Brunswick, Valdosta, Duluth, McEachern, Monroe, Colquitt County, Morgan County and Westover.

McEachern (6-0) and Colquitt (7-0) were both undefeated at the end of Monday. The Packers had another game scheduled for Tuesday. The Moultrie Observer said Sunday it had been a long time since the program began the season with six straight victories. Holland praised the turnaround the program had undergone under its head coach, Andy Harden.

The Blue Devils are 9-1, with their only loss to nationally-ranked Montverde Academy of Florida. Monroe and Duluth had seven wins going into Tuesday. Former region rival Brunswick had six as does Westover.

Morgan County enters at 4-2, but have been one of the state’s strongest programs in recent years. The Bulldogs won the Class AA state title in 2016, were runners-up in 2015 and won another championship in 2014. Brunswick is two years removed from its own state title.

Westover brings one of the most storied programs in Georgia history to Tifton. The Patriots have won five state titles and have advanced to state every year since 2000. Tift currently holds the longest streak for boys teams in the state, having gone annually since 1994.

The 2016 games will have seven boys teams that could be considered South Georgia and five from the northern half of the state. That, said Holland, was by design.

“That’s what I tried to schedule,” he said. Besides giving area fans the opportunity to see teams they might not otherwise see, the variety will also be beneficial to the southern schools, he said.

“We’re trying to keep up with them.”

South Georgia once had a strong presence in state tournaments, but that has drifted towards metro Atlanta schools in recent years. Over the last five seasons, only nine of the 34 state boys titles awarded went to South Georgia schools, including Tift’s win in Class AAAAAA in 2014.

Friday, the second day of the McDonald’s Invitational, will be the Championship Series.

“We wanted to do it on a night we had better matchups,” said Holland.

Games begin at 10 a.m., with Hawkinsville playing the Pelham girls. Tift’s and Brunswick’s girls will meet at 11:30. The boys begin at 1 p.m. with Brunswick and Monroe.

The rest of the afternoon has Colquitt and McEachern at 2:30 p.m., Tucker and Milton at 4 p.m., Valdosta and Bainbridge at 5:30 p.m., Morgan County and Westover at 7 p.m. and Duluth and Tift at 8:30 p.m.

Saturday’s schedule will be just three games and features just boys teams.

Bainbridge and Morgan County begin at 2 p.m. Colquitt and Duluth follow at 3:30 p.m. and Westover plays Tift at 5 p.m.

Holland said he expects the stands to not only be filled with fans, but with college scouts. Past invitationals have “been a blessing to us,” he said, helping Blue Devils get college scholarships.

He said Ladarius Stewart, Tadric Jackson and Tyrie Jackson had all made decisions based on connections established at the McDonald’s Invitational.