Lady Packer coach Rondesha Williams and staff are on their way to Archer High for Tuesday's GHSA 7A girls basketball Elite 8.

MOULTRIE – It’s that time of year when BPI and RPI are debated day after day. These are the indices of college basketball teams which say if one is worthy of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Only two high school teams in Georgia benefit from something like that, the power ranking that puts a boys and a girls Class 7A team into the GHSA tournament as an at-large (the spot that could go to the fourth-place team of Region 1-7A, but didn’t this year). But a factor in these indices is the strength of schedule. Colquitt County High’s Lady Packers won Region 1-7A and therefore didn’t need any extra help to qualify for a tournament in which they are still participating.

But Rondesha Williams did set up a good strength of schedule case when the current season began way back in late November. In Tallahassee, they defeated Rickards High 60-55; Rickards finished its season 28-3, falling to Ribault in the Florida Class 6A quarterfinals. At the Peachstate Shootout at Clayton State, Colquitt’s girls lost to Southwest DeKalb 60-51; SWD is 25-4, playing in the Class 5A Elite 8. In the same tournament, the Lady Packers lost to fellow 7A member Westlake; Westlake is 25-4 and playing Norcross in the Elite 8.

The focus from Christmas on went back to south Georgia for Colquitt County. There were setbacks to Valdosta and Tift County, but otherwise it was win after win all the way to the 1-7A finals against Lowndes. Williams’ group stayed at home when the state tournament began, knocking off North Cobb and Brookwood in tightly contested matchups. Now, for the first time in 11 years, Colquitt’s girls are in the Elite 8, and up next is Archer High (24-4)  today in Lawrenceville.

“It prepared us for where we are right now,” said Williams about those early games. “I knew these girls had the potential to get us where we are today. I knew we had to play those caliber of teams so we could get that experience. I like to play teams bigger than us, faster than us, so we will know how to handle those situations. Every game we played prepared us for this point.”

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Region 1-7A Player of the Year Diamond Hall. She’s still having a hard time thinking of herself in that kind of lofty term.

“I wasn’t expecting it,” she said. And couldn’t say much more on the subject except that it was due to the support of her teammates and coaches.

“Without them, we’re nothing,” said Hall. “They brought me this far.”

“Terrible” was a word that slipped out in self-description, not for Hall’s play today, but for a time earlier in her basketball career. It’s hard to imagine how somebody who can score in and out, grab a rebound, and make passes both routine and remarkable, was ever ‘terrible.’

“Attitude-wise,” Hall clarified. “Playing-wise. My skills. My ball handling. They helped me improve my attitude, especially when things aren’t going my way.”

•••

“This is a special group of girls,” said Williams, getting a bit emotional. “It just brings joy to my heart. They started as freshmen. When you ask 14-year-olds to go against 16-, 17-year-olds … they did not let me down. Each year we have seen the progression in all of these young ladies. It’s awesome.”

“We are a great team,” said junior forward Kiarra Lovett. “We’ve been together for a long, long time. So we have that chemistry.”

“We came a really long ways,” said point guard and ‘floor general’ Akia Sutton. “Our 9th grade year was our starting point. Last year we showed what we can do (reaching the ‘Sweet 16’). Now we are all able to play together.”

“We achieved our biggest goals,” said Hall. “We want to keep going. We don’t want to stop. We have a lot more to go.”

“(Sunday) I was home watching some film, and I didn’t realize we are one of the top eight teams in the state,” said Williams. “Then it hit me, and I couldn’t do anything but thank God. I really believe in my heart they are going to come out (at Archer) – because we are the underdogs, we were not meant to be here, we were not picked to beat Lowndes – and I truly believe we are going to keep going.”

“Everything,” said Lovett about Williams. “Anything we want, she gets it for us. We have to be good and keep being disrespectful, but in a good way (with teammates giggling). Good disrespectful. We have to trust her. She knows what she’s talking about.”

Like when it came to the shoulder brace she sported coming off surgery. Williams one day just up and told her to get rid of it.

“When I was playing with (the shoulder brace), I really wasn’t doing anything,” said Lovett. “It was stopping me from doing what I know how to do. I was so scared.”

Again, trust the coach, she knows what she’s talking about.

“She’s more than just a coach,” said Sutton. “She’s another parent. Always makes sure we’re O.K. She’s a real good person.”

“I love them like they are my own,” said Williams. “They are having a lot of fun.”

And pairing Hall with Za’Nautica Downs, who is chasing Makeba Ponder’s school scoring record in just her junior season, has to be an ecstatic feeling every game.

“(Downs and Hall) are unstoppable. Nobody can stop them,” said Sutton about her high-scoring teammates. “Without them, you can’t do too much.”

Sutton will be playing Archer on her birthday, so all the celebrating on that was done Monday.

While the Hall-Downs production is consistent, that third option to put the decisive points on the board came from numerous sources during the season. That includes Sutton, and Williams made a point down the stretch about Sutton’s growing confidence in her jump shot.

“I really didn’t know I could shoot. I couldn’t shoot that well at first,” said Sutton. But she went to her coaches when she noticed how open she was during games, saying she needed help. It’s from the extra coaching that Sutton said her confidence built up.

“I have an awesome coaching staff,” said Williams. “We fuss every day. I ‘fire’ one of them every day. But I couldn’t do it without them. They put up with a lot, but they never waiver.”

•••

Don’t be shocked when you hear that Archer High School’s girls basketball team has a pair of post players going to NCAA Division I schools. Autumn Newby signed with Vanderbilt and Linsey Marchese with Indiana.

These two along with Asia McCoy give Archer about the same scoring production per game, between 12.5 and 12.8 each.

Newby is right behind Brookwood’s N’dea Jones in rebounding in Gwinnett County at 12.1 per game. And she gets 3.5 assists and 2.5 steals a game.

But Colquitt County had the strategy on defense that shut down the Brookwood inside attack last week in Moultrie. Jones had just seven points and only one offensive rebound put-back.

“(Brookwood) was big, but when you trust your coach, she says box out and you just do it, you come out with a win (41-34),” said Lovett.

The coach also told Hall to hold the basketball near midcourt at the corner opposite the benches when the second half began. The Lady Packers were leading, but Williams was looking to get the taller Lady Broncos out of a zone. What in the world was Hall thinking, though, with such an unusual and radical strategy?

“I really thought they were going to come on out there after a minute,” she said. “But they were still sitting there. I’m like ‘I hope I don’t travel’ or they won’t call anything like three seconds. I was like ‘They need to come on.’ I was nervous. We were wasting all this time, because if they come back we might need that time later.”

But then she agreed it was all good when, after stalling more than four minutes, she dribbled inside the arc and stuck a quick jumper.

“I’m excited getting this far with these girls,” said Lovett. “If we just execute, we’ll come out with a win.”

“A lot of people doubted us,” said Sutton. “Now that we’ve finally made it this far, everybody’s started believing in us. I feel like we’re making a statement as a team.”

“I believe we can play with anybody we’re put up against,” said Hall. “I believe we are going to come out with a win.”

And it’s said so many times in a preseason: They have everyone back. The 2016-17 Lady Packers have one senior, a backup guard named Ty’Asia McNeal. So the team Packer faithful filled seats at William Bryant Court to see gets one more season.

Has the full potential been tapped?

“We can be great,” said Lovett. “We can win the state.”

“We have a long way to go, I feel,” said Sutton. “We have a lot more stuff to pull out of the bag … to finish this season off and next season.”

“I feel we are going to be way better next year,” said Hall. “We have a lot of stuff we can improve on during the summer.”

And it could be a summer of decisions for Hall, as being Player of the Year is sure to bring a lot of attention from the college scouts. She said there’s nothing to report on that front now, for it’s not something she thinks about now.

“I just play because I like to play,” said Hall.