HOUGHTON, Mich. – The Huskies are in a sprint to finish the regular season and a four-game road stand begins for the No. 13 Michigan Tech men's basketball team, who take on Purdue Northwest Thursday before rounding Lake Michigan for a Saturday tilt at Wayne State.

A live stream ($) and live stats for the games can be found at Michigantechhuskies.com/live.

The Games

The Huskies are primed for their sixth GLIAC weekend sweep, earning a 75-74 decision over Wayne State on Jan. 22 before an 83-65 victory over Purdue Northwest on Jan. 24 at the SDC Gymnasium.

About the Pride

Purdue Northwest is 10-11 overall and 6-8 in the GLIAC. Since the loss to the Huskies on Jan. 24, the Pride are 3-1 with the lone loss coming against then-No. 14 nationally-ranked Grand Valley State (85-76). Purdue Northwest is in a four-way tie for third in the GLIAC standings with Davenport, Ferris State and Lake Superior State.

The Pride see four players score eight or more points a game, led by Kyle Ross (14.8) and Kevin Taylor (10.7) reaching double-figure scoring. The duo also are the teams top rebounders, pulling down 7.5 and 5.5 rebounds per game, respectively.

Ross is also first in the GLIAC in field goal percentage (56.2) and ranks second in the GLIAC with eight double-doubles this season.

The Pride have the third-best 3-point field goal percentage in the league (35.9), knocking down 8.2 3-pointers as part of their 74 points per game.

Taylor, Kwat Abdelkarim and Garrett Clark have all made over 30 3-pointers for the Pride this season.

About the Warriors

Wayne State has won three consecutive games for an overall standing of 11-9 and a league record of 8-6. The Warriors are alone in second in the league standings with a key GLIAC weekend sweep with wins over Davenport (77-68) Thursday before upsetting then-No. 14 Grand Valley State (70-68) Saturday.

Wayne State is propelled offensively by the three-headed monster of Jordan Briggs (17.8), Carlos Paull III (12.6) and Jotham Nweke (10.5), who account for 40.9 of the team's 76.8 points per game.

Devin Belle and JaKobie Boose add over seven points a game for the Warriors.

Briggs also leads the team with 3.3 assists and 1.4 steals per game. Nweke commands the glass for a team-best 6.1 rebounds per outing.

About the Huskies

Michigan Tech moved up four spots in this week's NABC top-25 poll to No. 13 following the fifth GLIAC weekend sweep of the season with wins over Lake Superior State (96-76) and Saginaw Valley State (62-52) at the SDC Gymnasium. With losses by Northern Michigan and Grand Valley State over the weekend, the Huskies are back atop the league with an overall record of 20-4 and a GLIAC ledger of 11-3.  

The Huskies have the seventh-best field goal percentage defense (38.8), the 16th-best scoring defense (64.8) and the 13th-best defensive rebounds per game (28.42) in Division II.

Marcus Tomashek ranks 10th nationally in points (501) and points per game (21.8) which both lead the GLIAC. Tomashek is the team's top facilitator, adding 3.0 assists and 4.4 rebounds per game.

Ty Fernholz (9.3), Gabe Smith (8.8) and Dawson Nordgaard (8.3) all average over eight points per game behind Tomashek.

Nate Abel and Smith lead the team in rebounds and steals. Abel owns the league-high with 6.54 defensive rebounds as part of his team-best 7.6 rebounds per game, with Smith adding 6.6 boards per outing.

Smith has 46 steals this season for an average of 1.92 per game, as Abel has 34 pickpockets for the year.

One Last Thing

Road GLIAC wins are hard to come by, and the Huskies haven't beaten Wayne State in Detroit since Jan. 13, 2022.