Lewis-Clark State College's men's basketball team faces its first true road test of the season with a four-day, two-game trip to Montana where the Warriors will take on Rocky Mountain College at Billings Thursday night and No. 4 Carroll College at Helena Saturday night. Both games are at 6:30 p.m. (PT).
 
"It's going to give us a taste of what road weekend travel in this conference is really like," said coach Brandon Rinta, whose team is ranked 11^th nationally and takes a 13-1 overall record (2-0 in Frontier Conference action) into the weekend. "It's going to be a big challenge for this team."
 
Both weekend opponents score at a rapid pace with Rocky Mountain tallying 90.46 points per game (fourth in the league) and Carroll notching 91.50 (third in the league). While the Warriors are bunched with them in fifth at 85.80 points per game, it appears it is defense where the separation is seen. LCSC has the conference's best defense by allowing 65 ppg. Carroll is second at 67.64 with Rocky fifth at 72.92.
 
Carroll is undefeated at 14-0 this season (2-0 league) with a home game against Montana-Western Thursday before Saturday's matchup with the Warriors. Rocky takes an 8-5 overall mark (0-2 conference) into Thursday's game.
 
All telling numbers but what matters most is how the Warriors – winners of seven straight, adapt to the road.
 
"It's going to be a good opportunity for us to find out where we're at as a team and what we're capable of on the road," Rinta said. "We're going into gyms and playing in environments that a lot of our guys on the team haven't played against. That's where our returners – specifically guys like Trea (Thomas) and Derek (White) who have been through two and three years of these battles, know what it takes to be successful on the road."
 
On the road, they'll be facing three of league's top five scorers in Carroll's Ryan Imhoff (first at 21.00 ppg) and Matt Wyman (fifth at 16.07), and Rocky's Jared Samuelson (second at 19.17). The Warriors counter with balance with six players with double-figure scoring averages – Andre McCowan (15.0), Race Martin (14.6), Darius Alexander (13.0), Jeremy Franklin (12.6), Cory Dollarhide (11.5) and Cordel Hankerson (10.3).
 
"Like any game, we're going to have to play well defensively to have success but it's magnified on the road," Rinta said. "Carroll is the most efficient team in the country. They're a little bit more methodical than Rocky but they still score it at a high level."