ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis men's basketball team goes for its ninth straight win to begin the season as it hosts Lewis University on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. at the Mark Twain Building. The Tritons are currently tied with the 2014-15 team for the best start in school history at 8-0.
UMSL (8-0, 3-0 GLVC) remained unbeaten last week with three victories. The Tritons opened the week with a 70-65 win at then No. 22 Southwest Baptist last Monday before returning home to beat Drury 86-63 last Thursday and rallied from an eight-point second half deficit to defeat Missouri S&T 76-67 last Saturday.
UMSL moved up to No. 11 in this week's NABC Top 25 Coaches Poll which is the highest ranking in school history.
Isaiah Fuller, the reigning GLVC Player of the Week, leads the Tritons in scoring at 15.8 points per game while
Bowen Sandquist is averaging 9.3 points per contest and
Victor Nwagbaraocha and
Mayson Quartlebaum are at 8.3 and 8.1 points per outing respectively. Fuller also leads the team in rebounding with 4.8 rebounds per game while
Donovan Vickers has a team-best 27 assists. Nwagbaraocha leads the squad with 14 steals while Fuller and Vickers have 13 steals each.
The Flyers enter Saturday's contest with a record of 4-4, 1-3 in the GLVC but have dropped three of their last four contests. They went 1-2 last week dropping a 71-69 decision on a last second shot at Quincy last Monday. Lewis returned home to defeat Truman State 68-60 last Thursday but fell to William Jewell 76-60 last Saturday afternoon.
The Flyers are led in scoring by Jamere Hill at 14.0 points per game. He's joined in double figures by Beau Frericks at 12.5 points per contest and Atakan Sahinkaya with 10.3 points per outing. Devon Vanderheydt and Sahinkaya are averaging 6.3 and 6.2 rebounds per contest respectively. Hill also leads the team in assists (21) and steals (20).
Saturday's contest is the 34th meeting all-time between UMSL and Lewis with the Flyers holding a 22-11 advantage in the series, but the Tritons have won three straight and four of the last five contests.
