ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis men's basketball team seeks to extend its winning streak as it heads to the road for games at Drury and Southwest Baptist this weekend.
The Tritons will open their weekend at Drury, where they will meet up in a 7:45 p.m. contest Thursday in Springfield, Mo., before heading to Bolivar Saturday to face Drury in a 3 p.m. game at the Meyer Sports Center.
UMSL moved above the .500 mark in GLVC play last week defeating Illinois Springfield and Quincy putting it at 8-7 in conference play and 10-13 overall. The Tritons turned it up on the defensive end giving up 58.5 points per contest holding UIS to 20 points below its season average and Quincy to 15 points under its season average.
Matt Enright averaged 16 points the two games, including a 22-point effort against the Hawks that matched his season best and comes into Thursday's contest leading the Tritons with an average of 13 points per game. He is one of three double figure scorers in the UMSL lineup, joining
Mayson Quartlebaum at 10.3 per game and
Emanuel Prospere II at 10.3 per contest.
Troy Glover II is the leading rebounder in the GLVC with his average of 7.8 per game. He has seven games in which he's reached double figures in rebounds highlighted by a trio of 14-rebound performances. Glover is third in the conference with 1.7 blocked shots per contest.
UMSL continues to rank sixth in the latest installment of the GLVC's Point Rating System (PRS) that is used to determine the eight teams that advance to the conference tournament. This year's tournament will be held March 7-10 at Hyland Arena on the campus of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Mo.
It's a tight race for the final five spots in the tournament as the fourth-ninth slots are separated by 0.30 points. The Tritons have a rating of 3.37 points and are 0.10 behind William Jewell for fourth but only 0.20 ahead of Rockhurst in ninth. Indianapolis holds the top spot in the ratings with a PRS of 4.07 and is followed by Upper Iowa (3.75) and Truman State (3.68) for second and third.
About Drury – The Panthers enter Thursday's contest with a record of 12-10 overall including 5-9 in the GLVC and are 12th in the PRS with a rating of 2.64. They have been good at home this season having won nine of their 11 contests but have struggled away from the O'Reilly Family Events Center going 3-8.
Drury is the sixth highest scoring team in the conference this season with an average of 76.3 points per game.
Logan Applegate leads the team in scoring and rebounding at 15 points and 5.2 rebounds per contest and is joined in double figures by Juok Riak with 13.1 per outing. He also leads the team with 52 assists and 39 steals. Riley Naeger has a team best 14 blocked shots.
About Southwest Baptist – The Bearcats enter Thursday's game against McKendree with an overall record of 6-16 including 2-12 in conference play and have dropped 10 of their last 11 contests.
SBU dropped a 66-52 decision at William Jewell last Thursday and then dropped a hard-fought contest at Rockhurst 70-69 this past Saturday.
Drenin Denkins leads the team in scoring with 16.4 points per contest and is joined in double figures by Drew McMillen with 11.5 per outing. David Hector is the team's leading rebounder with 5.6 boards per game and leads the squad with 61 assists and 28 steals. Noah Franklin and Sasha Glushkov are tied for the team lead with 12 blocked shots.
