ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T heads to the road this weekend to tip off the 2015-16 men's basketball season, as the Miners will play a pair of in-region contests in the Holiday Inn Classic in Ashland, Ohio.
The Miners will face the host school, Ashland, in its season opener Friday at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern time) before taking on Lake Erie Saturday in a 1 p.m. (Eastern time) contest. Ashland and Lake Erie are members of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and the host Eagles were picked to win the GLIAC's South Division this season.
On Saturday, S&T led Southeast Missouri State at halftime of an exhibition contest in Cape Girardeau, Mo., but went cold from the floor in the second half and was outscored 46-17 over the final 15-plus minutes in an eventual 93-64 Redhawk victory.
Two newcomers to the Miner roster led the way Saturday, as freshman
Telloy Simon (Kitchener, Ont./St. Mary's) finished with 15 points and junior Rokas Paulauskas, a transfer from Frank Phillips College, had a double-double with 11 points and a game-high 14 rebounds.
S&T shot only 21.6 percent after the intermission while Southeast hit 60 percent of its attempts over the same stretch. The Miners did force 25 Redhawk turnovers, but scored only three points off of turnovers in the second half after recording 21 in the first 20 minutes of play.
Missouri S&T returns two double figure scorers from last season in
Desmond Buerge (Carthage, Mo./Carthage), who averaged 13.3 points per game and
Zach Ellis (St. Louis, Mo./Whitfield School), who scored 12 a contest and hit 36 three-point baskets. The Miners' leader in three-pointers a year ago,
Danylo Zuikov (Kiev, Ukraine/LaLumiere School), also returns after hitting 37 shots from behind the arc and leading S&T in assists with 101.
Ashland finished the 2014-15 campaign at 19-10 and tied for the GLIAC South title with a 13-9 conference mark. The Eagles return second-team All-Midwest region selection Wendell Davis, who averaged 17.7 points and 8.1 rebounds per game a year ago and shot 56.1 percent from the floor.
Davis was the only Eagle to average in double figures in the scoring column last season, but Ashland also returns two other starters in Boo Osborne, who averaged 5.6 points a game with 29 steals and Michael Hundley, a 6-9 post player who previously played at The Citadel and had 42 blocked shots for the Eagles last year.
Lake Erie, who will open its regular season slate Friday against the Great Lakes Valley Conference's second entry in the event, eighth-ranked Indianapolis, finished 12-14 a year ago and was 9-13 in the GLIAC. The Storm return their second-leading scorer from that team in Andy Bosley, who averaged 12 points a game and shot 44.4 percent from three-point range with 40 connections from beyond the arc.
The Storm made 233 three-point baskets last season and the five projected starters – who opened the game for Lake Erie in its 91-81 win Sunday over Toronto 3D – combined to make 124 of those three-point shots. Lake Erie attempted 44 three-pointers in Sunday's contest and made 12.
Bosley led the Storm with 24 points and added 13 rebounds, while Sean Howard finished with 15 points and Trey Howard with 14.
