ROLLA, Mo. – Following a pair of tough losses to open its home schedule last week, Missouri S&T's men's basketball team will wrap up its season-opening three-game homestand and play its final contest of the first semester at Gibson Arena Saturday when it hosts Southwest Baptist at 3 p.m.

The Miners dropped a pair of Great Lakes Valley Conference contests last week to McKendree in overtime and to Rockhurst by a total of five points in games that came down to the final possession.  S&T is now putting its focus on trying to notch that first victory of the season against an SBU team that will be seeing its first game action of the 2020-21 season Saturday afternoon.

Missouri S&T enters the contest with four players averaging in double figures and all four have had big games already on the young season.  Leading scorer Mitch Fairless (St. Charles, MO/Duchesne), who is scoring 15.8 points per game, posted a career-high 26 points in the McKendree contest and sent that game to overtime with a three-pointer just before regulation time ended.   Julien Smith (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest), one of two freshmen in that group of four, already has a 20-point game to his credit and had 19 in Saturday's game against Rockhurst.

Smith is shooting 36.7 percent from three-point range and leads the Miners with 11 treys on the year.

Meanwhile, fellow freshman Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) leads the GLVC with 16 steals and the team with 21 assists and is coming off his top scoring outing of the year with 20 points against Rockhurst, while Kevin Legardy (Las Vegas, NV/Canyon Springs), who like Froebe is averaging 12.5 points per game, has scored in double figures in each of S&T's last three games and also leads the Miners with 7.3 rebounds per game.

The Miners also have one of the nation's top shot blockers in Mahamadou Kaba-Camera (Conakry, Guinea/Balboa City (San Diego, CA)), who has six blocked shots in the first four games of the campaign.

ABOUT SOUTHWEST BAPTIST: The Bearcats, after postponements of three games to begin the 2020-21 season due to COVID protocols, will officially get their season started Saturday afternoon at Missouri S&T as it looks to improve on its marks of 20-9 overall and 13-7 in its first season in the GLVC.  SBU made the GLVC Tournament field last March, but fell in the opening round 80-68 to Indianapolis.

The team that will take the floor for the Bearcats on Saturday will include two of their top three scorers from last season in Brady Smith, who averaged 14.2 points per game a year ago and Quinn Nelson, who scored 12.4 per game.  Smith, a native of nearly Licking, Mo., also pulled down 5.4 rebounds per game and was second on the team with 26 blocked shots, while Nelson led SBU with 78 three-point baskets and shot 45.1 percent from three-point range.

As far as the newcomers go, the Bearcats added Idaho State transfer Nico Aguirre at the guard position as well as Ricky Crawford from Texas, plus forwards Jalil Beaubrun from Monteverde Prep in Florida and Houston Johnson from Missouri State in West Plains, Mo.

The Bearcats won both games from S&T last season, nipping the Miners 75-71 in Rolla and then handing them a 93-76 setback in the return meeting in Bolivar just over two weeks later.