ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's men's basketball team heads into the final week of its Great Lakes Valley Conference schedule still hoping to land a spot in next week's conference tournament, but will have to have success in its weekend trip to the Kansas City area to have a shot at making it.

The Miners, 14-11 overall and 8-10 in the GLVC, will open the weekend with a Thursday night contest against Rockhurst at 7:30 p.m., then head across town to Liberty to close the regular season schedule against William Jewell on Saturday at 3 p.m.

Missouri S&T is currently in 10^th place in the GLVC's Point Rating standings that will determine the eight playoff participants and will open the weekend against the team immediately ahead of it in Rockhurst.  William Jewell, meanwhile, resides in sixth place heading into its game Thursday against Maryville in Liberty.

The Miners kept themselves in contention with a pair of wins last week, knocking off Drury 90-72 and Southwest Baptist 63-60 in their home finale on Saturday.  Ikenna Okeke (Bolingbrook, IL/Romeoville) had huge games for S&T in the two wins, recording a double-double with 27 points and 10 rebounds in the win over Drury and then scoring a game-high 26 points against SBU.  Those performances helped earn Okeke the GLVC's Player of the Week award on Monday.

Heading into the weekend, Okeke leads the Miners with an average of 15.8 points per game that makes him one of five Miners averaging in double figures in the scoring column.  Lovell Williams (Rogers, MN/Maple Grove) is averaging 13.1 points per game, while Julien Smith (Fort Worth, TX/Northwest) checks in at 11.7 points per contest.  The others in double figures are Kaden Froebe (Lincoln, IL/Lincoln) at 10.8 points a game and Andrew Young (Ballwin, MO/Marquette) at 10.2 per contest.

Williams leads the GLVC with 5.2 assists per game on his 114 for the season, while Froebe leads S&T with 44 steals and Young tops the charts in rebounding with 6.6 per game and with 41 blocked shots.

ABOUT ROCKHURST: The Hawks, who are ninth in the GLVC's PRS rankings, come into Thursday's game at 12-14 overall and 8-10 in conference play.  Rockhurst has dropped its last three contests, the most recent an 89-74 loss at league leader Indianapolis on Saturday despite getting 19 points from Timaris Brown.  Most of Rockhurst's scoring in the game at UIndy came from three-point range, where it made 16-of-36 attempts from beyond the arc.

Brown leads the Hawks with averages of 15.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game, while Miles White is averaging 12.7 points per outing; that duo combined for 51 points in Rockhurst's win at S&T last month.  Brown, White and Jake Auer have combined for 156 three-point baskets for a team averaging a league-leading 10.8 treys per game.  White leads the way with 61 threes and Auer has connected 55 times from beyond the arc, while freshman Brian Hawthorne leads the Hawks with 72 assists and 46 steals.

ABOUT WILLIAM JEWELL:  The Cardinals have dropped their last two outings and have fallen to sixth in the GLVC's PRS rankings as a result; they head into their Thursday matchup with Maryville at 16-10 overall and 10-8 in conference play.  After dropping a two-point decision at Indianapolis last Saturday, the Cardinals fell 84-70 at Lewis two days later as they made just 38.6 percent of their shots from the field and five-of-30 from three-point range.

William Jewell has two of the top seven scorers in the GLVC in Jordan Jermain, who is fourth in the league with an average of 17.4 points per game and Kobe McKinley, who is seventh with his average of 16.3 per contest.  The Cardinals have five players averaging in double figures, a group that includes Isaac Patterson, who is scoring 11.8 points per game to go along with his team-leading 5.4 rebounds per outings.  Jewell is also reliant on the three-point shot, as it is making 10.2 per game at a clip of 37.4 percent on the season.