Southwest Minnesota State University's Aeron Stevens goes up for a shot in the first half on Dec. 19 night.

MARSHALL — A four-game skid over the last few weeks has left the Southwest Minnesota State University mens basketball game sliding down the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference standings from a tie to first down to third. The Mustangs will look to return to their midseason form this weekend when they host Winona State on Thursday and Concordia-St. Paul on Saturday.

The Mustangs enter the homestand at 14-9 overall and 12-6 in conference play, sitting just a game ahead of Concordia-St. Paul (16-8 overall) and Minnesota State. Winona State, meanwhile, is 9-14 and 8-10 in conference-play on the year. SMSU’s four-game losing streak is the second-longest active streak in the NSIC behind Minnesota Crookston’s five-game skid and UMary’s 11-game slide.

The Mustangs’ recent struggles have come largely against quality competition. SMSU fell to first-place St. Cloud State by a score of 49-47 last week, with the Huskies now riding a 12-game win streak, and fell 74-71 to a Minnesota State team on a 10-game win streak on Saturday. The loss to St. Cloud marked the first time in Brad Bigler’s 17-year tenure as SMSU’s head coach that the Mustangs lost a game in which they held their opponent to fewer than 50 points.

SMSU also lost 74-71 in overtime to Jamestown on Jan. 30 and 70-63 to Northern State on Jan. 31.

Hoping to roll through the rematch

The Mustangs defeated Winona State and Concordia-St. Paul earlier in the season. Braaten scored a career-high 27 points with six assists and eight rebounds to lead the Mustangs to an 80-71 win over the Golden Bears on Dec. 13. A day later, Micah Schlaak went off for 21 points with five blocks, four steals and six rebounds in the Mustangs’ 76-56 win over Winona.

Schlaak was the first Mustang this season to record a double-double last week, finishing with 13 points and 10 rebounds in the loss to Minnesota State.

St. Paul scoring champ

Ben Kopetzki is among the premier players to watch for the opposing teams in this weekend’s matchup. The junior guard for the Golden Bears leads the conference in scoring with an average of 21.3 points per game. He’s shot 44% from the field and 38% from 3 on the season, propelling Concordia to the conference’s second-ranked offense with 83.6 points per game.

Kopetzki also ranks eighth in the conference in assists per game with 3.4, but Sam West has been the team’s primary facilitator with an average of five dimes per game. SMSU’s Jakob Braaten is one spot behind West, ranking fourth in the conference with 4.7 assists, but Braaten’s 1.9 assist-to-turnover ratio has him outperforming West and Kopetzki’s 1.5 mark.

Much of Saturday’s result will come down to which team can control the tempo. While Concordia-St. Paul has had one of the conference’s best offenses, SMSU ranks second defensively in the NSIC with 66.4 points per game allowed. The quickness of the Mustangs’ perimeter defenders and the size and switchability of their bigs have made them a tough matchup for any opponent to run up the score on.

Winona State, however, has struggled offensively and defensively. The Warriors’ offense ranks last in the conference with 68.4 points per game, and its middling defense ranks seventh with 74.9 points allowed.

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While skilled defensive players don’t always necessarily put up massive numbers on the stat sheet, the Mustangs aren’t short on players racking up high numbers in steals and blocks. Mekhi Shaw, Schlaak, and Braaten each rank top-7 in the NSIC in steals per game. Schlaak and Aeron Stevens also rank third and 11th, respectively, in blocks per game.

Concordia’s Sam West leads the conference with 2.7 steals per game while Ryan Johnson slots in fifth at 1.7. As a team, SMSU ranks third in the conference in turnover margin at plus-1.57 while Concordia ranks seventh at plus-0.38.

Where to watch

Thursday’s game against Winona is slated for a 7:30 p.m. tip off while Saturday’s against Concordia-St. Paul is scheduled for 4 p.m. General admission tickets for both games are available for $15 at SMSUmustangs.com/tickets and K-12 student tickets are available for $5. A radio broadcast can be found on 105.1 FM KARL while live video and stats are available online at SMSUmustangs.com.