By: John Kean, Sports Information Director
ROLLA, Mo. – With five games remaining on the regular season schedule and a tight race among those trying to qualify for the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament, Missouri S&T's men's basketball team opens a critical stretch of the schedule away from home this week with a pair of contests in the state of Illinois.
The Miners, who will play four of those five remaining contests on the road, will face McKendree Thursday in a 7:30 p.m. game in Lebanon, Ill., followed by a Saturday matchup in Springfield, Ill., against the University of Illinois Springfield at 3 p.m.
Heading into Thursday's action, the Miners and Bearcats are 4-9 in the GLVC and in a four-way tie with 10
th place overall along with Missouri-St. Louis and Saint Joseph's, with Rockhurst one game ahead of the quartet at 5-8 and Illinois Springfield a game back at 3-10. The top 12 teams will make the GLVC Tournament, so the stretch run figures to be a mad scramble for all the teams involved to make the field.
In the Miners' case, their next four games are all against teams that they are either currently tied with or lead in the overall standings; S&T will face UMSL and Maryville (2-11 in the GLVC) next week prior to closing the regular season against currently GLVC West Division co-leader Drury on Feb. 25.
Missouri S&T, 8-14 overall, comes into the contest at McKendree looking to snap a four-game losing streak after dropping home games last week to ninth-ranked Bellarmine and Southern Indiana. The Miners were right with Southern Indiana throughout the afternoon Saturday, but were unable to stop the Screaming Eagles down the stretch in a 94-87 defeat.
Desmond Buerge (Carthage, Mo./Carthage) led the Miners with 23 points and
B.J. McLaughlin (Florissant, Mo./Hazelwood Central) added 17 as they enter the week as the top two scorers for S&T. McLaughlin currently ranks 11
th in the league in scoring with an average of 15.4 points per game, while Buerge is averaging 11.5 a contest while averaging 16 points per game over the Miners' last seven outings.
Rokas Paulauskas (Talsiai, Lithuania/Hamilton Heights Acad.) leads the GLVC in offensive rebounds with 58 and is averaging 6.8 overall for the season, while
Juwan Miller (Kitchener, Ont./Huron Heights) is among the league leaders in assists with 88 and steals with 38.
McKendree is 11-10 on the season and on Saturday, it defeated Maryville 92-84 in a milestone win for legendary head coach Harry Statham as he picked up his 1,099th career win -- the most by any coach in history at a four-year school.
In Saturday's win, the Bearcats got 40 points from freshman Nate Michael, the second-most by a player in the GLVC this season. Michael is one of four double figure scorers for the Bearcats, who are led by David Franklin with an average of 20 points a game. Franklin, who ranks third in the GLVC in scoring, has scored 20 or more in each of his last five games and had 33 in a recent win over Wisconsin-Parkside.
Michael Jackson is averaging 14 points a game and Darin Winkelman is at 10.7 points a contest.
Franklin is the top rebounder for the Bearcats with 7.9 a game and has a team-high 75 assists, while Michael has 41 three-point baskets and Winkelman has 37 while shooting 42 percent from beyond the arc.
Illinois Springfield, who is under the direction of former Miner Bill Walker, is 9-14 on the season and dropped a one-point decision at UMSL Saturday after winning at Maryville two days earlier. The Prairie Stars are paced by Jamall Millison, who averages 14.5 points per game with a team-high 43 three-point baskets and Davi Austin, who is scoring 11.7 points per contest.
The long-range game is a staple of the Prairie Stars' game as they have made 185 shots from beyond the arc this season, tied for the third-most in the GLVC.
Austin leads UIS in assists with 87 while Richard Freeman leads the way on the boards with 5.2 per game, but as a team, the Prairie Stars have been outrebounded by nearly four boards per contest which ranks next-to-last in the league.
