HOUGHTON, Mich. – The Michigan Tech men's basketball team will play an away and home game this weekend, traveling to Northern Michigan on Thursday (5:30 p.m.) before hosting the newest GLIAC member at the SDC Gymnasium on Saturday (2 p.m.).

Thursday's game will be locally televised on FOX-UP with a broadcast team of Mark Evans (play-by-play) and Dave Ellis (color). 

Watch the Huskies

All home and GLIAC games will be streamed on FloCollege. Michigan Tech fans can watch all home and conference games in volleyball, basketball, football and soccer with one subscription. FloSports provides each subscriber with access to all content and events with the purchase of a monthly or yearly subscription. Subscriptions are offered in two different billing packages - monthly and annual. Discounts are available for students enrolled at GLIAC member and associate member institutions. You must subscribe with a .edu email address to be eligible. FloSports is available on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, and Chromecast.

About the Wildcats

Northern Michigan checks in at No. 20 in the D2SIDA top-25 poll following a GLIAC sweep in the opening weekend of the New Year for an overall record of 10-2 and a perfect 4-0 start to league play. The Wildcats are winners of seven straight following eight-point victories over Davenport (60-52) on Thursday and Grand Valley State (78-70) Saturday.

The Wildcats rank first in the league in scoring defense, holding the opposition to 64.6 points per game while scoring 74.3 points on 45.9 percent from the field. Northern Michigan gets over 15 points per game from the charity stripe which leads the GLIAC at a clip of .737.

Redshirt junior forward Dylan Kuehl ranks seventh in the league while leading the Wildcats with 15.8 points per game shooting 53.4 percent from the field. Graduate transfer Julien Smith (12.9) and forward Sam Privet (10.6) join Kuehl in double-figure scoring. Smith has recorded a team-high 27-point outing this season. 

Kuehl is the team's leading rebounder with 6.3 boards per game, with Privet adding 5.8 an outing.

Senior guard Gerald Gittens Jr. does the little things for NMU with 8.8 points, 3.1 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.7 steals. His 20 steals this season ranks second in the league for a GLIAC-leading average of 1.67.

As a team, the Wildcats produce 10.8 turnovers per game, which paces the league and ranks 25th in the country. 

About the Lakers

Roosevelt, in its first year at the Division II level in the GLIAC, has played to an overall record of 4-8 and 1-3 in the GLIAC. The Lakers won their first GLIAC contest on Jan. 2, besting Purdue Northwest in the Goodman Center 78-77 and followed that with a Monday game at Parkside, falling 75-70.

The Lakers have three players averaging double-digit points, led by senior guard Forte Prater (20) joined by junior guard Enari Thomas (16.1) and junior Ramean Hinton (12.9). Prater's 20 points per outing ranks second in the league with two 30-point outings this season in the opening weekend of GLIAC play against Lake Superior State and Ferris State. Thomas also has a 30-point game this season, reaching double-figure scoring in 10 games. 

Hinton controls the glass for the Lakers with eight rebounds a game while adding 1.6 steals in seven games. 6-8 center Kennedy Brown has a stat-line of 8.4 points, 7.8 rebounds and 1.3 blocks for Roosevelt.

As a team, RU averages 73.8 points on 43 percent from the field with a league-low 5.9 3-pointers per game, shooting 30 percent from beyond the arc. Thomas leads the team with 12 3-pointers made on 26 attempts (46.2 percent).

Roosevelt was tabbed to finish 11th in the league in the GLIAC Preseason Coaches Poll under third-year head coach Dee Brown. 

About the Huskies

Michigan Tech has played to an 8-4 overall record while going 3-1 in the first two weeks of GLIAC play. The Huskies started the New Year with a gritty win at Grand Valley State (59-58) on Thursday before seeing its six-game win streak snapped at Davenport (73-71) in overtime Saturday.

First-year guard Ty Fernholz was clutch in Thursday's road win, scoring a team-high 18 points off five-for-10 from 3-point range, including six rebounds, also a team-high. The Stoughton, Wisconsin, native is one of four players averaging double-digit points per game. 

The Black & Gold have the third-best scoring margin in the league, averaging 78.8 points on 49.6 percent from the field while holding the opposition to 68.4 points per outing. The Huskies hot-shooting ranks second in the league and 21st in the country. The GLIAC Preseason Player of the Year junior guard Marcus Tomashek paces the league with 23.5 points per outing, which ranks 10th in the country, scoring 30 or more points three times this season. 

Junior forward Dawson Nordgaard adds 10.7 points on 63.9 percent from the field to go with 3.9 rebounds and a steal, while senior Pete Calcaterra records a team-leading 5.2 boards and 10 points a game.

One Last Thing

The Huskies are 6-2 when making more than eight 3-pointers a game and will continue to look to Fernholz from beyond the arc as he averages three 3-point makes a game with the best 3-point shooting percentage in the league (47.6 percent), which ranks 12th in all of Division II.