The South and football go together about as well as peanut butter and chocolate. It’s ingrained in our culture, and it likely will remain that way until the end of time.

Most of us wouldn’t have it any other way.

Any sane person would tell you that Reese’s Cups are delicious.

But every once in a while, a crop of athletes will come along to show the blind masses that there’s more to life than football.

This year, Butler County is fortunate enough to have two such teams.

The Greenville Tigers and the Georgiana Panthers basketball teams are currently in the hunt for a state championship in divisions 5A and 1A respectively.

The phrase “in the hunt for” is much more appropriate than “in search of” when referring to the Tigers and the Panthers, and anyone who has paid a modicum of attention to either team all year could tell you why.

Greenville and Georgiana’s basketball teams play each game with the mindset that winning is expected, and not just a potential outcome.

For both teams, it’s a result that has occurred time and time again throughout the past few months (the Tigers sit at 27-5, while the Panthers are 29-3) thanks largely in part to athleticism, talent, hard work and, most importantly, teamwork.

Both Greenville and Georgiana have shown the distinction between putting five guys in identical jerseys on the court and building a team.

The defenses are just exciting to watch as the offenses, with Richard Boggan, Jeremy Sims, Javarrius Cheatham, Ra’heem Moore and others swatting away basketballs like flies.

And, of course, there are the dunks.

And alley-oops.

And limp-inducing crossovers.

Everything that makes basketball exciting can be found watching Greenville or Georgiana basketball.

At this rate, we have a whole lot of basketball left to watch from both teams as they stake a claim for a championship run in Birmingham.

There are many occasions where considering what we at the Greenville Advocate do “work” is generous, and the coverage of Greenville and Georgiana at Dothan’s South Regional basketball tournament certainly adds to the mounting evidence.

If our time were spent covering Georgiana and Greenville basketball year-round, we’d never work a day in our lives.