VIDALIA — The LHSAA Class 3A State Basketball Playoffs get under way today, and Vidalia is the No. 2 seed as the District 3 champion.

While the Vikings sit near the top of the standings, No. 31-seed Jena is ready to sneak up and pounce.

But Vidalia coach Robert Sanders is intent on making sure that doesn’t happen.

“It’s tough to keep the kids from looking past (Jena),” he said. “We just have to remind them that anybody can be beaten at any time.”

The Vikings finished the season 28-1, their only loss coming to Sicily Island in December.

Vidalia rolled through District 3, finishing with an 88-29 win against Buckeye Saturday and has beaten its opponents by an average of 25.5 points per game this season.

Sanders said he doesn’t know too much about his team’s bi-district round opponent, other than that the Giants may look a lot like the last team he faced.

“They are a deliberate team, and they will try to hold it like Buckeye tried to do,” he said. “But they are a little more athletic than Buckeye was.”

The Vikings will have to guard the perimeter, Sanders said, because Jena likes to shoot 3-pointers to make up for a lack of size.

While the Giants will try to keep the game slow — as the Panthers did against Vidalia in the last game of the regular season — Sanders’ job will to keep up the game’s tempo by creating quick chances and lots of steals.

“Instead of playing zone defense, we go out and play man,” he said. “That speeds up the game.”

Sanders said there are a few minor nagging injuries left over from the long season, but the Vikings are 95 percent healthy.

The games starts at 7 p.m. today at the Vidalia High School gym.