ROLLA, Mo. – After splitting two games on the front end of a four-game road trip, Missouri S&T will face a pair of nationally-ranked teams this weekend to close out the trip that will it to the eastern end of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
The Miners, 9-9 overall and 3-8 in the GLVC, dropped a four-point decision at Quincy before upending GLVC West Division leader Truman State 96-91 Saturday and will look to carry the momentum from that win into this trip, which will begin Thursday in Evansville, Ind., against 17
th-ranked Southern Indiana at 7:30 p.m..
Following that contest, the Miners will head down the interstate to Louisville, Ky., for a 2:15 p.m. (Central time) contest against eighth-ranked Bellarmine, who currently holds the top spot in the GLVC East.
S&T held the lead in the final minute but was unable to hold on at Quincy, but rebounded by withstanding a second half run by Truman and making one of its own to come away with the victory.
Telloy Simon (Kitchener, Ont./St. Mary's) – who hit the basket that put the Miners in front for good – had 22 points and recorded a double-double with a career-high 12 rebounds, as did
Randy Holmes (St. Louis, MO/Soldan International Studies) with 16 points and 11 boards.
Simon is averaging 12.2 points per game on the season, second to
Jalen Myers (Shorewood, IL/Minooka)' mark of 14.2 per contest as the Miners have four players averaging in double figures heading into Thursday's contest. Holmes is scoring 11.8 points per game and
Juwan Miller (Kitchener, Ont./Huron Heights), the Miners' assist leader with 90, is averaging 10.8 points an outing.
Rokas Paulauskas (Talsiai, Lithuania/Hamilton Heights Acad.) leads S&T on the boards with 7.8 per game, a mark that ranks sixth in the GLVC, while Miller is second in steals with 42 and third in assists.
Dulan Scott (Chicago, IL/Farragut Academy) is sixth in field goal percentage at 60.4 percent on the year and
Ervin Sarajlic (St. Louis, Mo./Oakville) has the league's seventh-best mark from three-point range at 46.7 percent.
The Miners rank fifth in the GLVC in scoring with an average of 85.9 points per game and have scored 90 or more in three of their last four contests.
ABOUT SOUTHERN INDIANA: The Screaming Eagles, ranked 17th in the latest NABC/Division II rankings, enter the game on Thursday with a record of 19-2 overall and 9-2 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. However, USI has dropped two of five since opening the year with 16 straight wins, which includes an 81-66 loss Saturday at Indianapolis as it shot a season-low 34.3 percent.
USI, which leads the GLVC with an average of 93.5 points per game, has two of the league's top seven scorers in Jeril Taylor, who leads the conference at 21.6 points a game and Alex Stein, who is scoring 17.3 per contest. Taylor, who has the GLVC's top scoring game of the year with a 50-point effort at Truman State, has a team-high 61 three-point baskets and leads the Eagles in rebounding with eight per game and in steals with 33.
Stein is the team leader in assists with 86 and is the second-best free throw shooter in the conference at 91 percent. Meanwhile, Julius Rajala is second in the conference in field goal percentage at 63.6 percent and is also scoring in double figures at 11.9 points per contest, while Bobo Drummond is just short of the 10-point mark at 9.8 per game.
As a team, USI is shooting 50.1 percent from the field and 44.2 percent from beyond the three-point arc.
ABOUT BELLARMINE: The Knights have won five straight games heading into Thursday's home contest with Drury and hold the lead in the Great Lakes Valley Conference's East Division at 10-1; Bellarmine is 18-3 overall and ranked eighth in this week's NABC/Division II coaches poll.
As has been the case in recent years, the Knights are one of the top shooting teams in the nation, as they lead the conference in field goal percentage at 52.9 percent and free throw shooting at 80.1 percent; at the NCAA Division II level, the field goal mark ranks first and the free throw percentage is the third-best nationally. Over the course of its five-game winning streak, Bellarmine has made 54.9 percent of its shots from the field and 50 percent of its three-point tries.
Adam Eberhard, a 58 percent shooter from the field, ranks fifth in the GLVC in scoring with an average of 17.7 points per game and is also the Knights' top rebounder with 7.4 per game. Rusty Troutman is averaging 13 points per contest and Al Davis is at 12.2 points a game. That trio have also combined for 208 assists, led by Eberhard's 75 and Davis' 73.
Bellarmine also ranks first in the GLVC in scoring defense as it has given up just 66.1 points per contest.
