ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's basketball team will close out its opening stretch of road games in Great Lakes Valley Conference on Saturday afternoon with another matchup against a nationally-ranked team, as the Miners will take on Missouri-St. Louis in a 3 p.m. contest in St. Louis.

The Miners began their conference schedule by splitting two games, dropping a 78-75 decision at Southwest Baptist before pulling out an 82-79 win Monday at Drury.  Trailing by five at the intermission, the Miners shot 69.2 percent in the second half and got two late baskets from Lovell Williams (Rogers, MN/Maple Grove) to take the lead for good to even their conference record and go to 5-1 on the year.

Williams is among four Miners averaging in double figures heading into Saturday's contest with his average of 12.7 points per game and also leads S&T with 20 assists.  Julien Smith (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest), who had 21 in Monday's win, is leading the Miners with an average of 17 points per game that ranks second in the GLVC, while Ikenna Okeke (Bolingbrook, IL/Romeoville) is averaging 13.8 points per contest and Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) is scoring 13 points per game.  Froebe also leads the Miners with an average of 6.8 rebounds per game and with 12 steals while shooting 67.3 percent from the field.

S&T leads the GLVC in several team categories, including scoring, scoring margin, field goal percentage, rebounding margin and blocked shots.  Four of the five Miners who started the game at Drury on Monday are shooting better than 50 percent from the floor for the season and the fifth, Smith, is at 45.5 percent overall and leads S&T with 14 three-point baskets.

The Miners' field goal percentage mark of 52.1 percent ranks 14^th in all of NCAA Division II and their scoring margin of plus 22 points per game ranks 10^th nationally.

ABOUT MISSOURI-ST. LOUIS: The Tritons, ranked in the top 20 in both the national polls this week (18^th in the NABC rankings and 19^th in the D2SIDA poll), are 6-0 heading into a game on Thursday against Drury after knocking off then-No. 22 Southwest Baptist 70-65 on Monday in Bolivar.  Isaiah Fuller had 16 points to lead UMSL in scoring as the Tritons held SBU to 41.7 percent shooting from the field and a five-of-19 mark from three-point range.

Fuller is the only Triton averaging in double figures in scoring through the first six games with his mark of 13.7 points per contest, but UMSL has four others averaging between 8.7 and 9.5 per game. Freshman Matt Enright is scoring 9.5 points per game and transfers Bowen Sandquist and Dylan West are scoring 9.2 apiece.  Enright and Sandquist have been solid from behind the three-point line as well, as Sandquist has made a team-high 17 treys and is shooting 42.5 percent and Enright is hitting 42.3 percent of his long-range attempts and has 11 on the year.

West is the top rebounder for the Tritons with 5.3 per game, while Donovan Vickers had 20 assists and 11 steals.  Two of UMSL's six wins thus far have come over teams that were nationally ranked at the time of the contest.