ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's basketball team has an opportunity to match its longest winning streak of the season Thursday night when its hosts defending NCAA Division II champion and current fifth-ranked Drury at Billy Key Court in a 7:30 p.m. game.

Missouri S&T is encouraging its fans to wear green to Thursday's contest, as the first 200 S&T students with a valid I.D. card that come to the north gate (10^th Street entrance) will receive a shirt to wear at the game and residents of Phelps County who wear green to the arena will be admitted for $2. A valid identification card denoting place of residence will be required. Imo's Pizza and Buffalo Wild Wings will be sponsoring the halftime shootouts for S&T students, who will need to register at a designated location at the game.

Thursday's game, the final regular season home contest for the Miners, is one where S&T is playing for the opportunity to play another game on its home court, but will need to knock off the Panthers and have Missouri-St. Louis lose at Maryville for that to happen.

S&T won its third straight game Saturday when it led from start-to-finish in an 86-77 victory at William Jewell. The Miners, 12-13 overall and 7-10 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, currently sit one game in back of UMSL in the GLVC West Division standings but if the aforementioned scenario takes place, would take the eighth spot in the seeding for the Deaconess GLVC Tournament that will begin Sunday – and play a first round home contest as a result.

Bryce Foster (Florissant, Mo./Hazelwood Central) led the Miners with 27 points in the victory at William Jewell and continues to lead S&T in scoring with an average of 21.3 points per game. Foster, who is ranked second in the GLVC in scoring and 20^th nationally at the NCAA Division II level, will be one of three seniors honored prior to the game which will be their last regular season home contest at S&T.

The other two seniors are also the Miners' other double figure scorers, as Mudiaga Eruteya (Chicago, Ill./Notre Dame) is averaging 17.7 points a contest and leads S&T in rebounding (7.4 per game), assists (117) and steals (a league-high 59) and Nusrath Khan (Morton Grove, Ill./Maine East) is at 14.2 points a contest. Khan ranks fourth in the GLVC in steals and has knocked down 48 of the Miners' league-best 235 three-pointers at a clip of 42.5 percent.

Drury bounced back from its second loss of the season last Thursday at William Jewell, rallying from an 18-point deficit in the second half to beat Rockhurst 77-73 in overtime Saturday. The Panthers, 23-2 overall and 15-2 in GLVC play, have already clinched the GLVC West title and a first-round bye in the conference tournament, but are looking to secure the top seed for the tournament as well as in the NCAA's Midwest region, where they were ranked first last week (the new regional rankings will be released Wednesday afternoon).

Kameron Bundy, who was sidelined for the William Jewell contest due to an injury but did play at Rockhurst Saturday, leads the Panthers in scoring with an average of 18.3 points per game that ranks fifth in the GLVC. Cameron Adams is also in double figures at 16.8 points a game – the GLVC's ninth-best mark – and lead Drury with 6.1 rebounds per contest.

Adams is also shooting 66.7 percent from the field, the third-best average in the league and seventh-best in Division II for a team that is 11^th in field goal percentage at the national level. The Panthers are also tenth in the nation in three-point defense, holding its foes to just 29.5 percent from beyond the arc.

Drury beat the Miners 96-86 when the teams met in the conference opener in Springfield on Dec. 5. Eruteya had 27 points to lead all scorers in that contest, while Adams led the Panthers with 22.

Game Notes: Miners vs. #5 Drury

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