ROLLA, Mo. – In the midst of its longest winning streak since last December, Missouri S&T's men's basketball team will crank up its Great Lakes Valley Conference schedule with a pair of home games this week as it hosts Maryville and Missouri-St. Louis at Billy Key Court.
The Miners, who are off to their best start in 13 seasons, will face Maryville Thursday at 7:30 p.m. before hosting UMSL in a 3 p.m. tilt Saturday afternoon.
S&T is 5-0 after beating Missouri Southern and Emporia State – the latter in double overtime -- from the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association over the weekend at the Drury Thanksgiving Classic and will seek to start its conference slate in the same manner as they did a year ago when they knocked off the Saints in Rolla.
Through Monday's action, S&T ranked fourth in NCAA Division II in scoring with an average of 97.8 points per game and has done so with balance, as six players are averaging in double figures on the year. That group is led by
Jalen Myers (Shorewood, IL/Minooka), who has scored 16.2 points per contest, while
Telloy Simon (Kitchener, Ont./St. Mary's) comes in averaging 14 per game.
The Miners have also received 12.5 points a game from
Randy Holmes (St. Louis, MO/Soldan International Studies), who is second on the team in rebounding with seven per game behind
Rokas Paulauskas (Talsiai, Lithuania/Hamilton Heights Acad.)' 7.6 per game, while
Juwan Miller (Kitchener, Ont./Huron Heights) leads S&T with 28 assists and nine steals.
As a team, the Miners are shooting 50.3 percent from the field, 42.4 percent from three-point range while averaging 11.2 three-pointers per game and have outrebounded their opponents by nearly 11 boards per outing.
ABOUT MARYVILLE: The Saints are currently 2-6 on the season and dropped a pair of games over the weekend in the Missouri-St. Louis Thanksgiving Classic to Missouri Western and East Central.
Maryville has two players averaging in double figures on the season in Grant Sims with an average of 15.9 points per game and Forrester Sims (no relation) at 11.3 a contest. Grant Sims, who has played the 12th-most minutes of any player in NCAA Division II, has hit 48.1 percent of his three-point attempts on the year and also leads the Saints with 23 assists while shooting 51.7 percent from the floor.
The Saints have had nine different players make at least two three-point shots this year, but as a team, Maryville is shooting 32.6 percent from beyond the arc.
Karson King is the team's top rebounder with 5.2 per game, while Evan Booker is among the GLVC's top shot blockers with 11. As a team, the Saints are hitting 72.6 percent of their free throw attempts, with four of the five projected starters at 70 percent or better.
ABOUT MISSOURI-ST. LOUIS: The Tritons bring a 4-3 record into play this week -- UMSL will face 15th-ranked Drury Thursday in Springfield, Mo. -- and have recorded both of their wins over NCAA Division II schools in games in which they scored in the fifties. UMSL ranks last in the GLVC in scoring with an average of 64.1 points per game, but ranks second in points allowed per game at 67.3 per contest.
Steven Davis is the only player for the Tritons who is averaging in double figures seven games into the season with an average of 11.6 points per game, as he is connecting on 42 percent of his three-point attempts. Davis has made 21 of the Tritons' 48 three-point shots this year, while 10 of the other 27 have come from Rolla native Kobe Wands, who is
shooting 50 percent from long range while averaging 5.7 points a game during his freshman season in a Triton uniform.
UMSL has made just 40.5 percent of its field goal attempts thus far, but has connected 37.2 percent of the time when shooting beyond the three-point line. The Tritons also have a 6.5 rebound edge on their opponents, paced by Hunter Reine's 7.9 per game. Joseph English leads UMSL with 25 assists.
