MONMOUTH, Ill. — Here’s the good news: Heading into the first of three straight contests this week at Monmouth College’s remodeled Glennie Gymnasium in the Huff Athletic Center, the Fighting Scots’ men’s basketball team is undefeated at home (4-0).

Here’s the bad news: Grinnell College, the team that Monmouth will meet on Tuesday at approximately 7:30 p.m., is undefeated in ALL their games this season (9-0).

After falling to 0-3 in the Midwest Conference with their fourth straight road loss on Saturday, the Scots need to circle the wagons at home against a Pioneer team that once again is the national Division III leader in scoring (134.8). Additionally, the Grinnell “system” is hitting 23.7 three-pointers per game, good for second in the nation.

Later this week, Monmouth’s men and women’s teams will host St. Norbert College (Friday night) and Carroll College (Saturday afternoon).

Using the system, the Pioneers have been among the league’s top teams for a few seasons now, but word out of Iowa is that this year’s group might be the best yet. Grinnell’s talented senior class, led by pre-season All-American Steve Wood (28.1 ppg), also boasts the nation’s No. 2 assist man, Ken Heiser (8.9), and Steve Nordlund, who’s ranked first nationally in three-pointers per game (5.8). Nordlund’s three-point shooting and Grinnell’s team scoring not only lead all of Division III, but all the Division I and II schools, as well.

So far, the Pioneers have made easy work of nearly all their opponents. They’ve won eight of their games by at least 10 points, including Saturday’s 141-92 rout of Illinois College. Grinnell’s last four victories have come by an average margin of 40.5 points.

Meanwhile on Saturday, the Scots were suffering more second-half woes at Knox College, letting a 10-point advantage slip away in a 70-63 loss to the Prairie Fire. In league losses to Illinois College, Lake Forest and Knox, the Scots have lost leads of 14, eight and 10 points, respectively.

“We’ve had a tough stretch,” said MC head coach Terry Glasgow. “We’ve led at the half of all three games and then let them slip away. We wanted to get at least one win on the road, and we weren’t able to get it done. These next three games are critical for us. We have to pick up two out of the three, if not all of them.

“Aside from maybe Lawrence, there’s a lot of parity in the league this year, and we’ve said all along that the close games are going to come down to who makes the plays in the last three or four minutes,” Glasgow continued. “We haven’t been that team so far.”

The Scots are 24th in the nation in three-pointers game (8.9), but if recent trends continue, don’t expect Monmouth to improve upon that total on Tuesday. Glasgow prefers that in games against Grinnell’s system, his team either shoots layups after beating the Pioneers’ all-out backcourt press or works the ball a bit against their gambling halfcourt defense and gets a good shot in the paint. The longest shots they figure to take are 15-foot free throws, which the Scots must convert. That has not been a problem to date, as Monmouth is hitting at a very healthy 73.6 percent clip from the foul line.

For those new to the Grinnell system, coach Dave Arseneault has five statistical goals he wants his team to reach, all while using five different players at a time, who sub in every few possessions: take at least 94 field goal attempts; have at least half of those attempts be three-pointers; secure offensive rebounds on one-third of their missed shots; shoot at least 25 more times than their opponents; and force at least 32 turnovers.

When Glasgow’s teams execute, the results can be similar to 1999’s 140-107 victory, when the Scots, shooting mostly layups, made 58-of-68 shots (a school-record 85.3 percent). However, there are also occasions when Grinnell executes better, such as last season, when the Pioneers dealt MC a disappointing 141-102 home loss. And then there are games when both teams do what they want, such as a 150-145 Grinnell victory in 2000 that remains Monmouth’s record for most points scored in one game.

Former MC star Kent Froebe recorded a triple double in a Grinnell game, and a threat to repeat that rare statistical occurrence is MC point guard Travis Miller, who leads the team in rebounding (7.2) and also figures to approach the double-digit mark in scoring and assists against the Pioneers. If you’re looking for one Monmouth player to have a really big scoring night, it could be Warren High School product Troy Bennett, who is averaging 25.0 points against Grinnell in the last four meetings, including a high of 37 points last year.

“It’s not the ideal time for us to be playing Grinnell,” Glasgow admitted. “They’re an anomaly on everyone’s schedule, but we’re still licking our wounds a little bit. We haven’t head a lot of practice time since Christmas break, and we really don’t have that much time to prepare for them.”

While the Monmouth-Grinnell men’s game is the marquee event of the week, the other five contests are also very important. That includes the three women’s games, and no contest will be bigger for coach Dennis Mann’s team than their 5:30 p.m. matchup Tuesday with Grinnell.

The Scots will enter the game with a 2-1 league mark, and they can make the claim of “playoff contender” if they can improve to 3-1. Mann’s team has secured two nice MWC road victories so far, including an impressive 69-49 win at Knox on Saturday. In that contest, freshmen Laura Jahn and Mallory Mulvihill starred, combining for 27 points and 19 rebounds.

Grinnell (7-2, 1-1) will counter with inside presence Tai Duncan, who had 21 points and 13 rebounds in Saturday’s win over Illinois College and won the MWC’s Performer of the Week honor. The Pioneers, who have won four straight games, are led in scoring by Duncan (12.3), Lindsay Peter (11.4) and Acrivi Coromelas (10.3).