RAPID CITY - The South Dakota School of Mines men's basketball team will do something this weekend it has had few opportunities to do so far this season.

After playing five of its first seven games on the road to open the season the Hardrockers are playing in Goodell Gymnasium for a pair of games, beginning today as part of the US Bank Thanksgiving Classic.

"It is always good to be home and for a lot of the parents it is the first time they have a chance to see their kids play," Mines head coach Jason Henry said.

The Hardrockers enter the tournament with a 4-3 record - while not exactly where Henry wants his team to be - it represents progress during a tough stretch to open the season.

"I am happy not satisfied," he said. "We did get a big win against Dana in a game where they really tested us down to the end, but we were about to pull it out in the end. Last year we would have lost that game because we lost 10 games by four points or less."

The 'Rockers welcome a pair of teams they have not faced in some time this weekend, beginning with Haskell today and Peru State on Saturday. Black Hills State will also be at the tournament playing before Mines on each day.

"We haven't played Haskell in several years, but they are an experienced team that recently got a big win over Kansas Wesleyan and are playing with a lot of confidence," Henry said.

Mines is led by junior guard Robbie Fedor who is averaging nearly 16 points a game, and the team is starting to get more production in the middle where Carl Johnson is coming off a 14-point effort against Dana College.

Success for the Hardrockers this weekend will not take long for Henry to see.

Mines has struggled getting out of the gate and that is something the coach wants to see fixed.

"We need to start the game out better because we are digging out of early holes which makes it difficult," Henry said. "We also want to continue working on our rebounding because we have outrebounded our opponent just once in seven games."