BILLINGS, Mont. – The Montana State Billings men's basketball team opened the curtains on the 2012 portion of their campaign by splitting a pair of home games with the two schools from Alaska including a dominant 95-70 Great Northwest Athletic Conference win over the University of Alaska Fairbanks two days after coming close to upsetting 18^th-ranked Alaska Anchorage 72-80.
 
This week, the Yellowjacket men (8-6, 3-3 GNAC) will hit the road to square off against a pair of conference foes in Northwest Nazarene University and Central Washington University. The Yellowjackets will first travel to Nampa, ID for a Thursday game at 7 p.m. against the Crusaders of NNU before traveling to Ellensburg, WA on Saturday where they will tangle with the Wildcats of CWU in a 7 p.m. tipoff.
 
The Crusaders (8-5, 2-3 GNAC) and Wildcats (7-6, 1-4 GNAC) most recently played each other on Saturday, Jan. 7 with NNU coming out victorious in a 98-96 shootout. Northwest Nazarene has gone 2-1 since the holiday break while Central Washington is currently in the midst of a three-game losing skid.
 
MSUB is currently averaging a conference third-best 80.4 points per game off a .430 team shooting performance through the first 14 games of the season. The 'Jackets are currently sandwiched between their next two opponents in regards to scoring margin with NNU averaging a scoring margin of +6.8, MSUB averaging +6.6 and CWU winning by an average of +6.4.
 
The Yellowjacket men are presently second in the GNAC in regards to turnover margin at +3.14 and are third with 8.9 three-pointers per outing made. MSUB's 125 total treys connected on this season are second-best in the high-shooting GNAC.
 
Senior guard Antoine Proctor leads MSUB with a league fourth-best 17.4 points per game off of 243 total points so far this season. The Washington, D.C. native's 33 total steals has him third in the league with 2.4 steals per game.
 
Fellow senior guard Jaxon Myaer, second on the team with 13.1 points per outing, is currently third in the league as he connects on 2.6 treys per game. His .463 (63-136) leads the team and includes a .409 effort (36-88) from three-point range.
 
Behind the pair of shooting guards is a pair of senior forwards known for being able to hit a shot from just about anywhere on the court in Robert Mayes and Taylor Stevens. Mayes is currently averaging 11.2 per game while Stevens averages 11 points per outing.
 
However, when looking at conference play, both Mayes' and Stevens' averages rise to 14.2 and 13.3 points per conference game. In conference action, Mayes hits on .561 of his shots while Stevens hits on .492 of his shots in league action. A native of Houston, TX, Mayes leads the team with 6.8 rebounds per game, having corralled in a team-high 95 boards.
 
As a team, NNU is currently leading the conference with a .764 free-throw shooting performance while the Crusaders are third in the GNAC in regards to their .471 shooting performance from the field. Northwest Nazarene also leads the GNAC in three-pointers made at 10.6 per contest thanks to their 138 total treys made for the season.
 
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Crusaders are last in reference to turnover margin, as they are losing the turnover battle at -2.08.
 
Two Crusaders are in the top-10 in the conference in points per game led by senior Anthony Golden with a fifth-best 15.9 points per outing. He is also shooting a league sixth-best .446 from three-point range despite leading the league with 3.5 three-point shots per game.
 
Also in the top-10 in points per game is junior JB Pillard averaging 15.7 points per contest. Pillard is sixth in the GNAC with a .556 shooting performance on the season, second on the team to freshman Michal Kurimsky who is fourth in the league with a .583 performance.
 
The Crusaders' Jonathan Hawkins leads the conference by connecting on 89.5% of his shots from the charity stripe.
 
Central Washington is currently fourth in the conference with a .463 team shooting performance. The Wildcats lead the league with 6.5 blocked shots per outing, but they are giving up 77.7 points to their opponents per game, ninth-worst of the 10 basketball schools in the league.
 
The Wildcats have two players leading the league in rebounding highlighted by sophomore Kevin Davis averaging 9.0 boards per game. Davis also finds himself third in the league with a .586 field goal percentage. Senior Jody Johnson is second with 8.4 rebounds per game.
 
Following the pair of road games, the Yellowjacket men will enjoy a three-game home-stand to end the month of January.