The city of Vicksburg has hosted one North State Tournament in the past 20 years, but it was held across town at Warren Central.

But finally North State is coming home to The Swamp.

Tonight, the Gators (24-3) get to host the four-team North State Class 6A Tournament. Vicksburg will face Tupelo (28-3) in the night’s final game at 7:30. Starkville and Murrah tip off the tournament at 6.

Today’s games are elimination games as the two winners will advance to next week’s Class 6A State Tournament at the Mississippi Coliseum regardless of the outcome of Saturday’s final.

Vicksburg was in this position last year, when they went to Starkville and had to deal with the Yellowjackets on their home floor. Starkville won and went on to claim the 6A boys title.

Gators coach Dellie C. Robinson is glad to be the one at home this time in The Swamp’s cozy confines. A leaky roof prevented Vicksburg High from hosting the 1996 North State Tournament

“It’s been a long time,” Robinson said. “I just know we had Quentin Smith. And it was also the last time we’ve played Tupelo.”

The 6-foot-10 Smith was the state’s top player in 1996 and went on to have a solid career at Mississippi State. He led the Gators past Tupelo and then to another win for the North State title.

Fifteen years later,

Vicksburg is led by another of the state’s elite players, senior Mychal Ammons. Ammons is coming off his best career scoring game after he racked up 44 points in Tuesday night’s 83-72 win over Grenada in the satellite playoff.

Tupelo coach Grant Pate knows his Golden Waves face a tough task with having to play a must-win game on the road and deal with Ammons.

“Vicksburg has an outstanding tradition in basketball and they have a tremendous home-court advantage,” Pate said. “Coach Robinson has won a lot of games and won a (state) championship. We also know they have a marquee player in Mychal Ammons.”

Grenada can attest to that. Gators point guard Dominique Brown said it was a pretty simple plan when Grenada kept pushing the tempo — get the ball to Ammons.

“We had to feed the monster,” Brown said, with a smile. “They were mismatched inside. We had to keep going to our monster.”

Brown had 12 assists for the game. Backup point guard Rashad Gaines had five assists.

If Ammons wasn’t scoring off the feeds, Josh Gaskin was. He had 20 points to go with 12 rebounds.

The Gators also got to the free throw line. Ammons had 19 free throw attempts and made 18. The rest of the team went 8-for-14.

Vicksburg needed every point because Grenada lit up the perimeter with 14 3-pointers.

Both Robinson and Ammons feel the game with Grenada will help prepare the Gators for Tupelo.

“I think it will help us a lot,” Ammons said. “That was a great shooting team.”

Robinson agreed.

“Grenada did a lot to help us get prepared for Tupelo,” Robinson said. “Both teams are very good from the perimeter and they run a lot of the same things.”

Despite having only three losses, Tupelo has struggled against teams with size. Meridian beat them 91-55 and Piney Woods tagged a 71-51 loss at New Albany in late January.

“Those teams had some 6-7s and they were long,” Pate said. “But we also played some tough teams from St. Louis and Memphis. I know our guys are excited about this challenge.”