The 10th-ranked University of Southern Indiana men’s basketball team begins a week that could determine control of the Great Lakes Valley Conference East Division with an NCAA Division II top-10 showdown versus ninth-ranked Bellarmine University Monday at 7:30 p.m. Live coverage of one of the GLVC’s longest running rivalries, including live statistics, video, and audio, can be found on GoUSIEagles.com.

The Screaming Eagles (16-0, 6-0 GLVC) are coming off a thrilling two-game road swing that featured a 111-89 victory at Truman State University and a last-minute 88-85 win over 24th-ranked Quincy University. The victories extended USI’s season-opening winning streak to 16 games, tying for second-best in the history of the program.

Senior guard Jeril Taylor (Louisville, Kentucky), who scored a school-record 50 points in the win over Truman, leads the Eagles with 21.0 points per game, 22.5 points per conference outing. Sophomore guard Alex Stein (Evansville, Indiana) is second with 17.7 point per contest, while junior forward Julius Rajala (Finland) and senior guard Bobo Drummond (Peoria, Illinois) round out the double-digit scorers with 12.6 and 10.8 points per outing, respectively.

Bellarmine(13-3, 5-1 GLVC) is coming off of a 1-1 conference weekend, defeating Quincy in overtime, 103-96, and losing to Truman, 77-72. The Knights are 3-2 in their last five games since coming back from the holiday break.

USI leads the all-time series with Bellarmine, 50-38, with the teams splitting the last eight games. The Knights, however, won the last year’s series, taking two of three from the Eagles. Taylor led the Eagles against the Knights in last year with 19.0 points per game, followed by Drummond and Stein with 13.0 points per contest each.

The USI-Bellarmine top-10 showdown begins a big week for the GLVC East Division. The top four teams in the GLVC East — USI, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside (14-1, 6-0 GLVC), Lewis University (11-5, 6-0 GLVC), and Bellarmine — face each other in six games that could that could determine control of the division with just over a month left in the regular season.

The Eagles finish this week by hosting UW-Parkside Thursday at 7:30 p.m. for its annual United Way “White Out Game” and Lewis Saturday at 3:15 p.m.

Junior Jenna Martin (Evansville, Indiana) earned two victories at the indoor season opening Little Giant Open, while three long distance races were filled with Screaming Eagle runners.

Martin posted a pair of victories in the long jump and the 60-meter dash. Martin earned the victory in the long jump with distance of 17’02.20″, while she also earned the victory in the 60-meter dash with a time of 8.20 seconds.

Six Screaming Eagles placed in the top-10 of the 3,000-meters, including a third-place finish from senior Bailey Knable (New Albany, Indiana) with a time of 10 minutes, 58.31 seconds. Freshman Ellie Tjelmend (Springfield, Illinois) also earned a top-five finish with her time of 11:05.76, finishing fifth.

In the mile run, seven of the top-10 finishers were USI runners. Sophomore Hope Jones (Cumberland, Indiana) was the top-finishing Eagle in second with a time of 5:21.33. Senior Carly Whitesell (Zionsville, Indiana) finished just over a second later to secure a top-three finish. Rounding out the top-five were sophomore Micalah Booher (Pendleton, Indiana) and junior Jessica Lincoln (Palatine, Illinois).

Again in the 800-meter run, seven USI runners earned top-10 finishes, including sophomores Kate Henrickson (Booneville, Indiana) and Allison Rollins (Evansville, Indiana) taking the top-two spots. Jones earned another top-five finish with a time of 2:32.92 and a fifth-place finish.

Sophomore Hilary Paxson (Liberty Center, Indiana) ended the day with top-5 finishes in the weight throw and shot put. Paxson’s toss of 46’04.70″ was good enough for 2nd in the weight throw, while her she finished 4th in the shot put with a throw of 37’02.40″.

In the rest of the field events, freshman Rylie Smith (Floyd Knobs, Indiana) finished second in the pole vault clearing 09’05.80″.

USI returns to action January 20-21 when it competes at the Gladstein Invitational in Bloomington, Indiana, and the University of Indianapolis Collegiate Invitational in Indianapolis.