ROLLA, Mo. – With just four games remaining before the start of the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament, Missouri S&T's men's basketball team heads to the road for the final time in the regular season with a two-game swing through the state of Indiana this weekend.

The Miners will open their road trip Thursday against the University of Indianapolis in a 6:30 p.m. (Central time) contest, then heads downstate to face Southern Indiana Saturday at 3:15 p.m. as it seeks to get back on track after dropping their last two games.

After knocking off McKendree last Thursday in overtime, the Miners fell Saturday to Missouri-St. Louis at Gibson Arena and Monday at Lindenwood to drop to 10-13 overall and 6-10 in the GLVC.  Missouri S&T is currently in 10^th place in the Points Rating standings employed by the GLVC to determine the seedings for the conference tournament that will get underway on Feb. 28.

The Miners have the GLVC's second-leading scorer in Julien Smith (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest), who enters the weekend with an average of 19.5 points per game and is also second in the conference with 3.3 three-pointers per game.  He is joined in double figures by Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) at 11.2 points per game and Alex Strating (Wassenaar, Netherlands/American School of the Hague) at 10.9 per contest and both players are among the GLVC leaders in other categories, as Strating is second in field goal percentage at 62.6 percent and Froebe is fourth in steals with 1.8 per game.

Another Miner among the league leaders is Mahamadou Kaba-Camera (Conakry, Guinea/Balboa City (San Diego, CA)) with 1.3 blocked shots per game that has him fifth in the conference; he recently moved among the top 10 in career blocks with 58 as a Miner.

In Monday's loss at Lindenwood, Dylan Singleton (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) led the Miners with 18 points and he has averaged 14 points and 3.5 assists over his last four contests.  He is among three Miners along with Froebe and Strating who have dished out at least 50 assists this season.
 
ABOUT INDIANAPOLIS: The Greyhounds come into Thursday's matchup right at the .500 mark in GLVC play at 7-7 and own a 13-9 overall mark after losing 78-71 Monday at McKendree.  UIndy was 10-3 on the year following its win over Missouri S&T in Rolla on Jan. 6, but has done 3-6 since then with three of those setback taking place at home.

UIndy has three double figure scorers in Cory Miller Jr., with an average of 15.6 points per game -- ranking seventh in the GLVC -- Jesse Bingham at 14.9 per contest and Kendrick Tchoua at 11.1 per game. Miller and Tchoua shared the team scoring lead Monday with 15 points apiece as it had four score in double figures, which included a double-double by Julian Steinfeld.

Tchoua is ninth in the GLVC in rebounding with a team-best 6.4 per game and also ranks fifth in the conference in field goal percentage as he is shooting 60 percent from the floor.  Dee Montgomery, who missed the first game between the teams, leads the Greyhounds with 72 assists.

ABOUT SOUTHERN INDIANA: The Screaming Eagles come into the week ranked fourth in the latest Points Ratings System standings that will determine the seedings for the GLVC Tournament, as USI is currently 14-6 and 9-5 in GLVC play.  The Eagles had won six consecutive games before dropping two of their last three, including a 82-71 loss Saturday in their most recent contest at Southwest Baptist.  USI hosts Maryville Thursday before the Miners come to town on Saturday.

Jelani Simmons leads USI in scoring with an average of 13.3 points per game, while Jacob Polakovich has averaged a double-double on the season with marks of 12.4 points and a GLVC-high 10.5 rebounds per contest; he had a game with 26 points and 13 rebounds in a win at Drury last week.  Tyler Henry is also scoring in double figures at 11.4 points per game.

The Screaming Eagles have had their struggles in shooting the ball, particularly from long range where they have made just 30.7 percent of their three-point attempts, but they have held their opponents to just 40 percent shooting overall and 29 percent from three-point range which ranks atop the GLVC.  USI has also outrebounded its opponents by an average of six per game, the second-best mark in the conference.