ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's basketball team returns home this week to begin a five-game stretch in which four of the contests will be played at Gibson Arena, beginning with Thursday's matchup against 21^st-ranked Truman State.

The Miners, 6-7 overall and 2-4 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, will face the Bulldogs in a 7:30 p.m. contest Thursday night before William Jewell comes to town for a 3 p.m. game on Saturday.  The lone road game in that five-game stretch will take place Monday, when S&T plays at Quincy at 7:30 p.m.

Missouri S&T saw a four-game winning streak and a five-game home winning streak come to an end last Thursday when it lost 78-61 to Indianapolis at Gibson Arena, then S&T fell Saturday 83-72 at Missouri-St. Louis despite getting 22 points from Julien Smith (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest) and 16 from Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln).

Smith, who was held out of double figures for the first time this season against UIndy, bounced back against UMSL and raised his seasonal scoring average to 19.3 points per game in the process.  Smith, who ranks third in the GLVC in scoring entering play this week, is also among the league leaders in three-pointers per game with 3.3 and in free throw shooting at 82.4 percent.

He is among three Miners scoring in double figures on the season along with Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln), who is averaging 11.1 points a contest and Alex Strating (Wassenaar, Netherlands/American School of the Hague), who is scoring just over 10 per game.  Froebe also leads the Miners with 36 assists and 22 steals and is also pulling down a team-high six rebounds per game, while Strating ranks second in the GLVC in field goal percentage at 62.2 percent.  Mahamadou Kaba-Camera (Conakry, Guinea/Balboa City (San Diego, CA)) is also among the GLVC leaders in blocked shots with 18 on the season.

ABOUT TRUMAN STATE: The Bulldogs, 10-3 overall and 4-1 in the GLVC, have been ranked among the top 25 teams in NCAA Division II throughout the season -- ranked as high as second at one point -- but is coming off a 74-73 road loss to McKendree Saturday.  The loss dropped the Bulldogs to 21st in the latest NABC coaches poll and in a tie for 19th in the D2SIDA media poll.

Truman, who won the NCAA Division II Midwest Regional championship last March, has a trio of double figure scorers led by Cade McKnight at 19.9 points per game.  McKnight has not played in the last three games, however, but would be ranked second in the GLVC in scoring if he had played in 75 percent of Truman's game.

The others in double figures for the Bulldogs are Masen Miller with an average of 13.5 points per game and Elijah Hazekamp with a mark of 12.2 per game.  Miller leads the GLVC with 45 three-point field goals and is shooting 45 percent from beyond the arc, while Hazekamp is hitting 45.2 percent of his long-range tries and 52.4 percent overall.

Truman is shooting 49.9 percent from the field and 42.1 percent from three-point land, both of which rank second in the GLVC and leads the conference with 10.9 treys per game.  The Bulldogs also lead the league in assists with 19.2 per game, paced by Hunter Strait's 74.

ABOUT WILLIAM JEWELL: The Cardinals currently sit in second place in the GLVC West Division with a 3-2 conference mark and is 7-6 overall, but has also won five of their last six games in a run that started with their 81-77 win over the Miners last month in Liberty.  In that game, Mason Alexander came off the bench to score 20 points and connected on four of Jewell's 12 three-pointers.

Alexander, a 37.1 percent three-point shooter on the season, is averaging 12.6 points per game as one of three double figure scorers on the Cardinal squad.  Kobe McKinley is averaging a team-high 13.8 points per game while also leading the team with 32 steals and 10 blocked shots, while Jordan Jermain is scoring 12.5 points a contest and has 24 three-point baskets, second to Alexander's 33.   Jermain led Jewell with 20 points in its 81-77 victory Saturday over Quincy.

The Cardinals, who will host Drury Thursday before playing at S&T Saturday afternoon in what will be their first road game since Nov. 29, are among the top five in the GLVC with 8.7 three-pointers per game and are shooting 37.5 percent from beyond the arc.  They are also holding their opponents to 31.5 percent shooting from long range, the fourth-best mark in the conference.
 
ABOUT QUINCY: The Hawks are coming off a week of ups and downs on the floor that has put their records at 9-7 overall and 2-4 in the GLVC heading into play in the coming week.  Last week, the Hawks picked up close wins over two of the top teams in the conference in Maryville and Southwest Baptist, but also lost a game in the final seconds to Truman State and a game on the road Saturday at William Jewell as the Cardinals connected on better than half of their shots both overall and from three-point range.

Quincy has been paced by Malik Hardmon, a transfer from Alcorn State who has averaged 15.9 points per game.  He has also shot 54.4 percent from the field and leads the team in both rebounding with 5.8 per game and blocked shots with 12.  Paul Zilinskas, who is shooting 54.1 percent from the floor, is averaging 10.8 points per game and Nate Shockey, a transfer from North Dakota, is scoring 10.6 per game.

The Hawks, who open a three-game homestand Thursday with games against Maryville and Lindenwood prior to Monday's matchup with S&T, are the fourth-highest scoring team in the GLVC with an average of 78.1 points per game and have turned the ball over just 10.6 times per game, the second-lowest mark in the league.