ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T will play its final regular season home games of the 2021-22 season this weekend, as Illinois Springfield and Lewis will pay visits to Gibson Arena before the Miners open play Monday in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament.

The Miners will take on Illinois Springfield Thursday at 7:30 p.m., before Lewis – the current leader in the GLVC Points Ratings standings – comes to town for the regular season finale on Saturday at 3 p.m.  Following the completion of Saturday's action around the conference, the Miners will learn who their opponent will be for the first round of the GLVC Tournament that will open on Feb. 28.

S&T comes into the week looking to get back on track as it has dropped six of its last seven games to fall to 10-15 overall and 6-12 in the GLVC.  The Miners are currently sitting in 12^th place in the seedings through Monday's action around the league and have two opportunities left to improve their seeding before the tournament begins.

The Miners have the GLVC's fourth-leading scorer in Julien Smith (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest), who enters the weekend with an average of 18.9 points per game and also ranks second in the league with his average of 3.2 three-point baskets per game.  Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln), who scored a career-high 22 points in Saturday's 72-65 loss at Southern Indiana and who had his third double-double of the season, is scoring 11.5 points per game and is S&T's top rebounder with 6.3 per game.  Froebe also leads S&T with 44 steals and is second in assists to Dylan Singleton (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) with 63; Singleton has dished out 64 assists on the year.

Alex Strating (Wassenaar, Netherlands/American School of the Hague) is also scoring in double figures with his average of 10.2 points per game and ranks second in the GLVC in field goal percentage at 62.3 percent, while Mahamadou Kaba-Camera (Conakry, Guinea/Balboa City (San Diego, CA)) has 30 blocked shots and ranks fifth in the conference in that category.

ABOUT ILLINOIS SPRINGFIELD: The Prairie Stars have had their share of struggles over the past month as they have lost nine of their last 11 contests -- including seven straight in one stretch -- but got a victory in their most recent outing by beating Rockhurst 66-63 on Saturday.  Chris Hamil led UIS with 17 points in a win where the bench was a huge contributor, as the Prairie Star reserves scored 36 of the team's 66 points.

Chase Robinson leads four players in double figures with an average of 13 points per game and leads UIS with 41 steals, while Hamil -- who transferred within the GLVC from UIS to Rockhurst -- has averaged 11.8 points per outing and leads the team witih 47 three-point baskets.  Jack Weber and James Kelley have both averaged 10.2 points per game.

Weber is the team's top rebounder with an average of 5.4 per game and also has a team-high 17 blocked shots, while Jesus Castillo has shot 43.4 percent from three-point range and has made 33 treys to rank second behind Hamil in that department.  The Prairie Stars are hitting just 31.4 percent of their long range shots as a team, which is second from the bottom in the GLVC rankings.

Coming into Thursday's game, UIS – with records of 11-15 overall and 6-12 in the GLVC – is one spot ahead of the Miners in the Points Rating standings.

ABOUT LEWIS: After opening the season with five straight losses, the Flyers took off once GLVC play began and currently sit atop the Points Rating standings the GLVC is employing to determine the seeding for the upcoming conference tournament.  Lewis has an overall mark of 14-8, but is 12-3 in GLVC play after toppling McKendree 70-62 on Monday.

Connor Niego leads the Flyers in scoring with an average of 15.4 points per game that ranks eighth in the GLVC, while Bruno Williams is scoring 12.2 per contest.  Niego, the leading rebounder for Lewis as well with 7.4 per game, is shooting 53.6 percent from the field and leads the team with 28 steals.

The Flyers are one of the top three-point shooting teams in the GLVC as they have connected on 40.2 percent of their long-range attempts after going 10-of-20 in Saturday's 89-79 win over Southwest Baptist.  Beau Frericks, who hit five of the treys, has a team-high 38 this season and is shooting a GLVC-best 49.4 percent from beyond the arc, while Niego is hitting 43.5 percent of his tries and Williams has been good on over 40 percent of his attempts as well.