THIBODAUX -  The Nicholls State University men's basketball team (4-4) will try to clinch the best ten-game start to a season in 16 years when the Colonels return to Stopher Gym to conclude the home portion of their non-conference schedule beginning with a Thursday night matchup against Dillard University (6-5).

The Colonels will try to snap a two-game losing streak that saw Nicholls pick up hard-fought losses at a pair of preseason conference favorites in their most recent road trip.  The Colonels visited Wichita State, a near unanimous pick to win the Missouri Valley Conference and a team ranked in the top five in the CollegeInsider.com  mid-major to-25 poll, and Mississippi State, the preseason SEC West Division favorites, and fell back to 4-4.

Nicholls hopes a a return home will help get the Colonels back on track.  Nicholls owns a 23-4 home-court record since the start of the 2008-09 season, and Nicholls is riding a streak of six straight home court victories, the most recent of which was a 75-41 win over Loyola-New Orleans at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center on Dec. 8 (counted as a home win according to NCAA home/neutral site regulations).  The Colonels have not lost in Stopher Gym since a Feb. 10, 2010 loss to eventual Southland Conference regular season and tournament champion Sam Houston State.

The Colonels are led by senior forward Anatoly Bose who has been in the top-ten in the nation in scoring average all season long.  The Sydney, Australia native enters Wednesday's matchup with Dillard averaging 26.4 points/game, the sixth best mark in the country.

Something that bodes well for the Colonels is the increased scoring output from the rest of the roster.  Nicholls has had at least three double-digit scorers in four of their last five ballgames.

Tipoff between the Colonels and Dillard is set for 6:30 p.m. at Stopher Gym on Thursday night.  The game can be heard in the New Orleans-Houma-Thibodaux area on the Colonel Sports Radio Network, including flagship station KLRZ 100.3 FM in LaRose and KLEB 1600 AM in Galliano.  A live streaming video webcast of the game will be made available at www.thibodauxonline.com.  Links to the live audio and video webcast streams, as well as links to live stats, will be made available at www.geauxcolonels.com on the day of the game.

Following the game, the Colonels will return to aciton on Dec. 21 when Nicholls concludes the home portion of the non-conference schedule with a matchup against Jarvis Christian.