Sometimes you just have to bow to the quality of your competition.

Butler’s varsity boys basketball team must be getting tired of doffing its cap, however.

The Golden Tornado headed to North Allegheny Friday night to face their fifth undefeated opponent in 11 games this season.

Despite sporting a 3-7 record, Butler doesn’t have a bad team. It just hasn’t been as good as its schedule.

The seven teams to defeat the Tornado have a combined record of 50 wins and 10 losses. Butler has lost to only one team — 4-5 Pine-Richland — with anything close to a losing record.

Of course, looking at the Section 3-AAAA standings doesn’t exactly create reasons for optimism.

Hampton, North Allegheny and New Castle are not only undefeated, they are the highest scoring teams in all of WPIAL Class AAAA. The Talbots are also the stingiest team in all of WPIAL Quad-A, allowing just 46.2 points per game.

Figuring all three of those squads as virtual locks for the playoffs, that leaves Butler, Seneca Valley, Pine-Richland, North Hills and Shaler to battle each other for the final playoff spot in the section.

All four WPIAL Quad-A semifinalists from last year — New Castle, Hampton, North Allegheny and Seneca Valley — came from this section.

Point is, you can be a pretty good basketball team in Section 3 and not even sniff the postseason.

Butler did not have a senior with any varsity experience on its roster entering this season. That makes it even tougher to compete against veteran-laden lineups that comprise this league.

The Tornado do have underclassmen who have clearly improved from last year. Among them are guards Arum and Keenan Krause, guard-forward Nick Patten and forward Mark Gross.

All are juniors. None has developed into a go-to player quite yet.

Butler doesn’t have that unquestioned leader on the floor right now, the kid who takes the ball in his hands and control of the game when it’s needed.

Nate Snodgrass was that type of player.

So were Cody Herald and Bobby Swartwout — and those guys all played for the same team.

The Krause boys and Patten could still develop into that type of trio in terms of maturity on the floor.

Right now, Butler’s keys to victory need to be constant effort, hard-nosed defense and limited mistakes.

Through 10 games, those three elements have not appeared consistently enough.

But these juniors — and talented freshman forward Tyler Frederick — are growing up.

This team’s best days are yet to come. Whether they’re good enough to stack up to this competition?

Stay tuned.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle