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Craig — The rules to the high school basketball postseason are simple: Win and stay in. Lose and the season is over.

The Moffat County High School boys team looks to advance past its first hurdle tonight.

The Bulldogs (15-8 overall, 11-3 Western Slope League) host the Conifer Lobos (9-14 overall, 5-9 Jefferson County League).

"Very little," MCHS coach Steve Maneotis said when asked what he knows about the Lobos. "My understanding is they are pretty long in length, and as far as the guys they put on the floor, they can go as many as nine deep."

Conifer averages 59.5 points per game on offense, 59.7 ppg on defense.

The Lobos are led by senior small forward Josh Tadlock (11.1 ppg), junior power forward Kalvin Winter (10.5 ppg) and junior shooting guard Stephen Theiss (9.4 ppg).

Moffat County averages 61.7 ppg on offense and 51.5 ppg on defense.

Senior center Chayton Owens (19.9 ppg) leads the Bulldogs offense in scoring, and hauls in an average of 8.1 rebounds per game, as well.

Power forward Kelton Willbanks (9.0 ppg), small forward Collin Jackson (8.2 ppg), shooting guard Thomas Noble (7.9 ppg) and point guard Mike Peters (7.2 ppg) round out MCHS' starting five seniors.

"They've got that big player, Owens," DeBuhr said. "He's obviously a tremendous athlete. So, a lot of our preperation for them has kind of been based around him and just kind of making sure that - they've got a couple of guys that can shoot the ball - we're getting hands up on them. We've got to stop their big guy and make sure they don't destroy us on the boards."

Despite the Lobos losing record, eight teams from their conference - the Jefferson County League - earned postseason berths.

And a strong conference schedule is something that DeBuhr said should help his team in the long run.

"Our conference was really deep this year," DeBuhr said. "It isn't as top heavy, so we kind of had a season where teams beat each other up. I think that will help us."

Moffat County was in the same position last year as the Lobos are this year.

Finishing the 2007-08 season with a losing record, the Bulldogs earned a No. 10 seed and traveled to No. 7 seed Greeley Central and lost, 52-40.

"They're the 10th seed coming to play a seven, and I think the pressure should be on the seven seed," Maneotis said. "I felt confident about coming in as a 10 seed last year, so we know they will be confident when they come in here. What I learned from last year really is this: It's the playoffs. It's 0-0. Forget the records. You take it from there and take it for what it is. We've got to take care of business or we go home. That should be enough incentive for anybody."

Maneotis said numbers, game tape and calls to common opponents' coaching staff may help but that the game is played on hardwood, not paper.

"It's the playoffs," Maneotis said. "You got here based off of how you play. We can talk all we want, but it just comes down to who's going to execute better when we step on the floor. It's their style versus ours, and their athletes versus ours. There's not a whole lot anybody can say that's going to change a lot of things that we do, or that they do."

DeBuhr agreed with Maneotis' assessment.

"When we play well, we can play with anybody," DeBuhr said. "Two years ago, we were a seven seed that made it to the Elite 8, so we've been down that road before. We've done this track. All you can do is worry about one game at a time. It's high school basketball. The team that plays better on that day wins most of the time. So, the focus for us (Wednesday) is to play our best game."

Tip-off is at 7 p.m.

Notes:

The Lobos and Bulldogs have played one common opponent this season. Moffat County lost Dec. 12 to D'Evelyn, 70-49, while Conifer lost twice (81-65 and 71-63) to the conference rival Jaguar.