ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's basketball team heads into the final week of the regular season needing to put some wins on the board in its effort to make the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament and will look to do so with two games at Gibson Arena.

The Miners will play host to Lewis Thursday at 7:30 p.m., then close out the regular season slate Saturday when it faces fourth-ranked Indianapolis in a 3 p.m. contest.  Saturday's game will also be Senior Day, as the Miners will honor their lone fourth year player on the roster, Kelly Vaughn (Mount Vernon, MO/Mount Vernon), in between games of the doubleheader with the S&T women.

Missouri S&T moved back among the top eight in the GLVC's Point Rating System standings last week after a come-from-behind victory at McKendree, but dropped back out after losing Saturday at Maryville and finds itself in ninth place heading in Thursday's game.  S&T, who is currently in a three-way tie for seventh in the actual standings, is 0.02 points in back of Maryville for the eighth spot and just 0.05 ahead of McKendree.

The Miners come into play this week with four players averaging in double figures, paced by Julien Smith's (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest) average of 15.6 points per game.  Ikenna Okeke (Bolingbrook, IL/Romeoville) is averaging 14.8 per contest, while Lovell Williams (Rogers, MN/Maple Grove) is at 14.7 per game and Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) at 10.2 per contest.

Smith is currently fourth in the GLVC in scoring and is also in the top 10 in free throw shooting at 82.4 percent, while Froebe leads the conference in steals with 44 and Williams is third in with 42.  Williams is also tied for fifth in the conference in assists as he became the first Miner in six seasons to reach 100 for a season – he has 101 after Saturday's game – and Andrew Young (Ballwin, MO/Marquette) ranks fourth in field goal percentage at 56.1 percent and third in blocked shots with 28.

The Miners continue to lead the GLVC in scoring with an average of 79.2 points per game and are third in field goal percentage with a mark of 47.9 percent for the season.

ABOUT LEWIS: The Flyers sit at the bottom of the GLVC standings at 3-15 in conference play and are 8-18 overall heading into Thursday's contest.  Lewis has dropped its last seven games but has lost three of them by three points or less, including Saturday's 69-66 home loss to Rockhurst after having a shot to win the game in the final seconds.

Beau Frericks leads the Flyers with an average of 15.5 points per game – the sixth-best mark in the GLVC – while Jamere Hill is the team's other double figure scorer at 12 points per contest.  Hill also leads the Flyers in assists with 81 and in steals with 37, while Devon Vanderheydt leads them on the board with 5.3 per game.  Despite being 10 games under the .500 mark, Lewis has been outscored by an average of just over two points per game this season as it has dropped seven games by three points or less.

Frericks had 24 points to lead the Flyers in the first meeting between the teams, which was won by S&T 87-75 in Romeoville, Ill., on Jan. 14.

ABOUT INDIANAPOLIS: The Greyhounds moved into the top five in the coaches' poll this week after extending their winning streak to 18 games with a win Saturday over Southwest Baptist.  The 18-game run is the third-longest active winning streak in NCAA Division II as UIndy comes into play this week at 24-2 overall and 16-2 in the GLVC; the Greyhounds have already clinched the league's regular season championship and top seed for next week's conference tournament.


UIndy is one of the stingiest defensive teams in the GLVC, holding its opponents to a league-low 63 points per game and to just a 39.9 percent shooting mark from the floor, while also leading the conference with 99 blocked shots.  Jesse Bingham leads the Greyhounds in the scoring department with an average of 16 points per game and also has a team-high 79 assists, while Kendrick Tchoua is averaging 14.4 points and a team-best 7.8 rebounds per game while leading the GLVC in field goal shooting at 74.4 percent.

Tchoua scored a then-career high 26 points when UIndy beat the Miners in Indianapolis 86-67 on Jan. 12.  He topped that career mark when he had 27 points in a win over Drury last week that preceded UIndy's 86-79 victory over Southwest Baptist two days later.