The road doesn't get any easier for the Carroll College men's basketball team.

One weekend after taking on a tough Rocky Mountain squad, the Saints will tangle with a couple of ranked opponents.

Tonight, Carroll faces No. 11 Westminster, before following that up Saturday with a game against No. 19 Lewis-Clark State.

The Griffins are coming off a 103-60 rout of the University of Montana-Western. All five of Westminster's starters average in double figures.

"They have the most offensive firepower in the league," said Carroll College coach Gary Turcott.

Danny Stosich leads Westminster at 17 points per game, but perhaps Griffins most important player is Danny Reeder.

Reeder leads the conference with seven assists per game. He also connects on nearly 60 percent of his shots.

"The key to the whole deal is their point guard, Reeder, Turcott said. "He is a magician who breaks everybody down and gets the ball distributed."

While their starters are impressive, Westminster's bench is also formidable.

Against the Bulldogs, Griffin reserves scored 40 points.

Saturday's game against Lewis-Clark State will be a very different test than the one against the Griffins.

LCSC is one of the best defensive teams in the country, allowing 66 points per game. That mark is No. 24 in the nation.

They held Montana Tech in their last game to 51 points, including just three free throws.

"What they do well is recover after helping," Turcott said. "They take a team completely out of their offense."

The Warriors are hardly just dependent upon their defense. Mike Gordy is one of the best post players in the league. He heads up the Frontier Conference at 21 points per game.

Gordy is joined by athletic point guard J.R. Gordon. Gordon leads the conference in steals at three per game. He hammered down three dunks against Montana Tech last weekend.

The Saints are coming off a loss to Rocky Mountain College and a regular season Frontier Conference title would be tough to pull off with two losses this weekend.

"Its a tough assignment," said Turcott. "There isn't any harder road trip that any NAIA team in the country makes."

The numbers bear that out as the Montana schools of the Frontier Conference have won four times in nine years against Westminster and Lewis-Clark State when those teams are at home. Carroll has two of those four wins.

"We have worked especially hard on the offense," Turcott said. "We are trying to make sure that we can run our offense against two teams that are so good defensively.

"We have simplified things and we are going to try to do a few things well. We want to make sure that the kids understand that we will run plays for them, but they have the freedom to make plays."

Tipoff for the Westminster game will be 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. for the Lewis-Clark State game.