ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's basketball team has optimism heading into the 2022-23 season after the Miners made strides during the previous campaign.  Beginning on Wednesday, the Miners will see if that optimism translates into victories as S&T begins the season with three games in Springfield, Mo.

The Miners' first venture into Springfield will take place Wednesday when they take on Missouri State in an exhibition game at 7 p.m., then they return to southwest Missouri two days later for their first two regular season contests in the Drury Midwest Regional Classic at the O'Reilly Family Events Center.

S&T will open the regular season slate Friday with a 4 p.m. matchup against Lake Superior State of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, then takes on Northwood from the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Saturday at 1 p.m., prior to its home opener on Nov. 15 against Westminster at Gibson Arena.

Despite being picked to finish 10^th in the Great Lakes Valley Conference this season, the Miners bring a squad into the season that includes four of its top five scorers from a year ago.  That contingent is led by guard Julien Smith (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest), who finished fourth in the GLVC in scoring last season with an average of 19.2 points per game that was the highest scoring average for a Miner in eight seasons.

Smith also connected 90 times from three-point range last season as he ranked second in the conference in that category to earn second-team All-GLVC honors.

The Miners had two others earn All-GLVC awards last season in Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln), a member of the league's all-defensive team and Dylan Singleton, who was one of the five members of the conference's all-freshman squad.

Froebe finished fourth in the GLVC with 49 steals last season and also dished out a team-high 72 assists while scoring in double figures with an average of 11.1 points per game.  He also added 12 blocked shots and had only 44 turnovers in 944 minutes of play during his second year at S&T.

In his first season as a Miner, Singleton started in 27 games and averaged 7.5 points per game while shooting over 41 percent from three-point range and recording 68 assists and 35 steals.

The fourth member of that scoring group is Ryan Parker (Bloomington, IN/Bloomington South), who averaged 6.4 points and 4.9 rebounds per game last season, while the Miners also return Micah Johnson (Ankeny, IA/Centennial), who scored just over five points per contest and shot 40 percent from three-point land.

S&T has two additional returners that received playing time last season in Michael Appiah Brefo and Kelly Vaughn (Mount Vernon, MO/Mount Vernon), as well as a pair of players that were redshirted last winter in Kyle Renkoski and Andrew Ellinghouse.

In terms of newcomers, the Miners have added a mix of freshmen and transfers to the mix.  The transfers are headed by Lovell Williams, who comes to S&T from the University of Wisconsin-Stout after finishing third in that conference in scoring last season with an average of 18.3 points per game and shot better than 40 percent from three-point range.

Another significant transfer is Ikenna Okeke, who played last season at Central Missouri and the year prior to that at Northern Oklahoma-Enid when current Miner assistant coach Darreon Reddick was on the coaching staff there.  Okeke averaged five points and 3.3 rebounds per game for the Mules last season.

A third transfer to the program is CJ Nwosu, who spent last season at Miwaukee Area Technical College.

The Miners will have four true freshmen on the roster this season in forward Andrew Young and guards Alex Benassi, Jack Zarr and Michael Onunkwor; the latter two are related for former Miners Mark Zarr and Chris Dawson, respectively.  Young and Benassi were both first-team all-state selections in the state of Missouri last season as high school seniors.

ABOUT THE OPPONENTS: Missouri State opened its season Saturday by downing Newman 78-58 in an exhibition contest and will open its regular season schedule against S&T on Wednesday (the game will be an exhibition contest for the Miners).  In Saturday's game, Bryan Trimble Jr., a transfer from the University of Akron, went six-of-12 from three-point range to score a game-high 20 points and Donovan Clay posted a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Clay is the top returning scorer for the Bears as he averaged 8,4 points and 6.1 rebounds last season while shooting 53.7 percent from the field.  He is just one of three returning players on this year's roster for the Bears, who finished the 2021-22 season with a 23-11 record and were picked to finish fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference this season.

Lake Superior State was picked to finish third in the GLIAC this season after going 16-11 a year ago.  The Lakers have two returning double figure scorers in Caden Eberling, who scored 14.8 points per game before his season was cut short due to an injury and Kemon Bassett, who averaged 14.5 points a game and shot 49.7 percent from the floor a year ago.

Northwood is coming off a 5-21 season and was tabbed to finish 11^th in the G-MAC.  The Timberwolves had five players who averaged in double figures last season, but have 13 new players among their 14 members of their roster.  The only returners is De'Airrus Ware, who scored four points per contest a year ago, while the group of 13 newcomers includes five transfers.