HELENA, Mont. - The Carroll College men's basketball team faces their final road tests of the season in No. 20 Great Falls and Montana State University-Northern Saturday.
The Saints (15-8, 4-5 Frontier Conference) look to build on Saturday's 57-55 win over Westminster. The Frontier's second-leading scorer
Zach Taylor lead the Saints with 18.39 points per game.
Carroll split the first meeting with the two teams defeating MSU-Northern 89-83 and falling to Great Falls 70-61.
"We know that both teams are playing good ball," head coach
Carson Cunningham said. "Northern has won four out of five and Great Falls is at top of the standings so, its really just a matter of us going game-by-game, game-plan-by-game-plan and see if we can find a to keep grinding out some 'W's'."
Great Falls (17-6, 6-3 FC) is tied with Montana-Western for the lead in the conference. They are led by first-year coach Anthony Owens and guard Marcus Hurn leads the Argos with 14.5 points per game.
The Saints are working hard not to repeat the same mistakes that led to loss in the first game against the Argos.
"We struggled from the free-throw line late and that really hurt us, we turned the ball over early and that hurt us as well and we let their two main scorers get in rhythm as well," Cunningham said. "So all three of those things need to change, we can't turn the ball over especially early and we can't let those guys get hot. We are top ten in the nation in free throw shooting, we got to make our free throws and I think that if we can do those three things, we'll have a fighters chance."
MSU-Northern (15-10, 4-5 FC) is one of the hottest teams in the conference. After losing their first conference game but have won four of the last five games and they are particularly good at home. They are led by Corbin Pearson with 12.17 points and 5.17 rebounds per game.
"They won four out of five games," Cunningham said. "They're experienced, they're dangerous it's a tough place to play. It really seems repetitive but every single game a battle royal."
The Saints take on the Argos at 7:30 p.m. Friday and the Lights at 8 p.m. Saturday.
