ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's basketball team will head to Illinois this weekend to complete its 2020-21 schedule, as the Miners will take on Lewis University Thursday in Romeoville, Ill., before closing the season Saturday afternoon with a game at Illinois Springfield.

The Miners enter Thursday's contest against the Flyers looking to break a four-game losing streak, which reached that mark following a 73-64 loss Saturday to Indianapolis at Gibson Arena.  Despite getting 19 points from Julien Smith (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest), their leading scorer on the season, the Miners were unable to hold onto a 14-point second half lead as they dropped to 4-14 on the season.

Smith enters the final weekend of the regular season as the fourth-leading scorer in the Great Lakes Valley Conference with an average of 18.5 points per game and is the Miners' leader in three-point baskets with 50, as he is shooting 37.9 percent from three-point range.  He is one of four S&T players that are scoring in double figures along with Mitch Fairless (St. Charles, MO/Duchesne) at 11.4 points per contest, Kevin Legardy (Las Vegas, NV/Canyon Springs) at 10.6 per game and Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) at 10.1 per outing.

Froebe currently is tied for the GLVC lead in steals with 46 and also leads S&T with 63 assists and an average of 6.1 rebounds per contest.  The Miners also have another player among the national leaders in Mahamadou Kaba-Camera (Conakry, Guinea/Balboa City (San Diego, CA)), who is second in the GLVC and 12^th nationally in blocked shots with 24.

ABOUT LEWIS: The Flyers are 9-9 heading into the final week of regular play in the GLVC and currently sit in the seventh  spot for next week's GLVC Tournament.  Lewis holds a narrow edge over Rockhurst for the seventh spot, but is also close in the standings to Lindenwood and Drury, the teams that hold the two positions ahead of it.

Lewis is coming off a 64-63 loss at Southwest Baptist last Thursday, a game in which the Flyers overcame a 19-point second half deficit and took the lead on a basket by Trevion Bell with 13 seconds left, only to see the Bearcats answer back with the winning basket seven seconds later to pull out the win.

Bell leads a balanced Lewis scoring attack with an average of 11.4 points per game, while Bruno Williams is averaging 11.1 as the Flyers' only other player in double figures.  Bell has also made a team-high 26 three-point baskets at a clip of 37.7 percent, while Dre Bell has made 21 and is hitting just over 40 percent of his long-range attempts.

Connor Niego, a mid-year transfer from Holy Cross, leads the team in rebounding with 7.3 per game , while Artese Stapleton heads the Flyers with 35 assists.

ABOUT ILLINOIS SPRINGFIELD: The Prairie Stars enter Saturday's game having lost five consecutive games which has dropped them back to 7-12 on the season; their scheduled game with Drury on Thursday was canceled earlier this week.  UIS is winless in February after entering the month with a .500 record, which includes an overtime loss to GLVC leader Truman State and a pair of road setbacks last week, the latest a 73-60 loss Saturday at Southwest Baptist.

Chase Robinson, who had 18 points in the first meeting between the teams in January, leads UIS in scoring with an average of 17.2 points per game and is one of four double figure scorers for the Prairie Stars.  Keymonta Johnson is averaging 14.1 points per contest, while freshman Jack Weber is averaging 12.4 per game and leads the GLVC in field goal percentage at 63.6 percent.  The fourth double figure scorer is Trey Marble at 10.4 points a game and he also leads the team with 57 assists.

Johnson is also third in the conference in rebounding with a team-high average of 8.2 per game, while also shooting 50.5 percent from the floor.