ROLLA, Mo. – Backed by its best shooting effort in recent weeks and a school record performance along the way, Missouri S&T's men's basketball team snapped a nine-game losing streak Thursday night as it downed McKendree 85-72 in Great Lakes Valley Conference play.

The Miners shot 49.2 percent from the field – their best showing since their last victory on Jan. 2 at Saint Joseph's – as they used a big run to close the first half with a 13-point lead and used another to push it out to as much as 24 in the second half.

S&T never trailed in the contest, but led by just two with 4:42 left in the first half following a basket by Michael Feezer.  That basket turned out to be the last field goal of the first half for the Bearcats, as the Miners got a lay-in by Michael Nesbitt (Evansville, Ind./LaLumiere School) off one of Danylo Zuikov (Kiev, Ukraine/LaLumiere School)'s school record 13 assists to start a 12-1 run to finish the first half.  Five different Miners scored during the course of the run.

McKendree tried to creep back into the game early in the second half, closing to within seven on John Murphy's three-point play at the 17:35 mark.  However, the Miners outscored the Bearcats 18-1 over the next five minutes to take their largest lead of the contest at 64-40 with 12:45 to play.

Desmond Buerge (Carthage, Mo./Carthage) scored seven of the Miners' 18 points during the course of the second half run and his three-pointer – one of nine made by S&T in the contest – gave the Miners their 24-point advantage.

The Miners kept the lead above 20 for a better part of the next five minutes, before the Bearcats made a late surge to get the margin down to nine on two occasions with under three minutes to play.  With 1:17 to play and S&T holding a 79-70, Buerge got an offensive rebound and put-back to make it an 11-point game, then blocked a shot at the other end to all but lock up the win.

Buerge led the Miners with 18 points and added five blocked shots and four steals.  S&T also got 16 points from Nesbitt and 14 from B.J. McLaughlin (Florissant, Mo./Hazelwood Central); that trio combined to go 18-of-29 from the field in the game.

Meanwhile, Zuikov's 13 assists broke the S&T single-game mark that was set by Michael McClain back in 1996, when he had 12 in a win over Washburn.

McKendree's Michael Jackson led all scorers with 27 points, while Matt Holmes finished with 19, but the Bearcats hit just 38.9 percent of their shots overall and one-of-12 three-point attempts.   The Bearcats' leading scorer for the season, Logan Carson, was held to nine points on two-of-16 shooting.

The Miners also outrebounded the Bearcats 40-31 as both teams finished the night with records of 9-11 overall and 2-10 in the GLVC.

Missouri S&T will wrap up its four-game homestand Saturday when its hosts Illinois Springfield in a 3 p.m. contest.