CLINTON, Miss. --- The Mississippi College men's basketball will get back on the road this weekend to face Christian Brothers University on Thursday night in Canale Arena. Tip-off for the Gulf South Conference contest is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.

This will be the 10th all-time meeting between the two schools with MC holding a 5-4 edge in the series. Since MC started playing a GSC schedule in 2014-15, the Bucs have won all three contests.

The Choctaws and the Bucs played back on December 12th in Clinton with CBU picking up a 64-53 win, holding MC to their lowest offensive output of the season. The Choctaws shot just 33% from the field, with Tory Rice (14 pts, 14 rebs) leading the way. Drew Hildreth and Jeff Larkin led CBU with 20 points each.

The Choctaws are coming off their first home GSC win of the season, erasing a 14-point first half deficit to grab a 69-57 win over West Alabama. Rice scored 20 points with 11 rebounds, while Johnny Rucker posted 18 points. MC tallied 14 assists on 19 made field goals while going 24-of-36 (67%) from the foul line.

MC head coach Don Lofton comes into his 12th season with his 200th career victory in sight. Lofton, who has been a part of the program for more than 30 years, has won 195 games as the head man and coached his 300th career game against UWF.

Rice (14.1 ppg / 11.9 rpg) leads the GSC in rebounding and ranks 2nd nationally in cleaning the glass. The Starkville native became the 22nd player in school history to pull down 400 rebounds with 11 against UWA on Saturday. He also became the 56th player in school history to score at least 600 points.

Rucker (12.9 ppg / 4.1 rpg) has found his stroke over the last two games, going 5-of-12 (42%) from long range in that span. The Yazoo City native averaged 17.5 points per game in two home contests against West Georgia and UWA.

Tristan Moore (13.6 ppg / 4.1 apg) is MC's all-time leader in assists and steals per game for a career. The Senatobia native has recorded at least one swipe in all but two games this season and had six assists in Saturday's win over the Tigers.

The Choctaws got a much-needed outside shooting threat back on Saturday as Jonathan McGee (11.1 ppg) returned to the lineup after missing Thursday's game against UWG. The Raymond native is shooting 40% from behind the arc and went 2-of-4 from long range in the win over the Tigers.

The Bucs are led by 17th-year head coach Mike Nienaber, who graduated from Mississippi College in 1977 and played four years for coach Doug Hines. The former Choctaw is the winningest coach in school history at CBU and Bethel College.

CBU is coming off an overtime victory (80-78) at Lee University on Saturday afternoon that saw Jeff Larkin (23 pts) nail a long three-pointer in the final seconds. Adam Dieball scored a team-high 25 points with five assists, while Drew Hildreth added in 19 pionts.

Larkin (18.1 ppg) is the team's leading scorer and is shooting 45% from the floor with a team-high 27 steals. Dieball (16.0 ppg) is the three-time reigning GSC Freshman of the Week and leads the team in field goal percentage (.511) and assists (4.2) per game.

Hildreth (14.9 ppg) leads the team with 33 blocked shots and 8.0 rebounds per game. He is also second on the team with 25 steals. While the Bucs are 10th in the league in scoring offense (72.2 ppg), they are the 3rd-best defensive scoring team in the league (71.9 ppg).