Women’s college basketball rivalries just don’t get any bigger than the one taking place at Chick Evans Field House Thursday night.

At 6:30 p.m., the NIU women’s basketball team (23-5, 12-0) squares off with the DePaul Blue Demons (14-11, 9-3) for their final regular-season North Star Conference meeting. DePaul will depart the NSC after the 1991 season to become a member of the new Great Midwest Conference.

“We respect what our men’s program is trying to do,” DePaul coach Doug Bruno insisted. “We really feel part of the North Star and we leave with a heavy heart. But, Coach Albright and I have agreed to continue this series. We both think it’s good for college basketball.”

The series has been more than “good” for college basketball. Over 15,000 fans turned out to watch these two squads battle last season alone. With the most notable being the Illinois women’s collegiate basketball record-setting crowd of 6,118 packing the fieldhouse on Feb. 15, 1990. In addition, the four largest crowds in state of Illinois history have been DePaul-NIU contests.

“(NIU-DePaul) is the biggest night of the year,” NIU coach Jane Albright exclaimed. “You can throw all the records and statistics out the window when we take the floor. It’s just a matter of who’s better on that particular night.”

“NIU-DePaul has become one of the biggest rivalries in women’s college basketball,” Bruno said. “Not just in Illinois or the Midwest, but in the entire country.”

DePaul holds a 10-5 series edge, but the Huskies have been surging as of late. NIU has defeated the Blue Demons in their previous four meetings, including a 91-82 decision at Alumni Hall in January.

Behind Lisa Foss’ 37 points, the Huskies darted out to a 17-point halftime advantage but had to hang on to hand DePaul its second conference loss at the time. DePaul was playing without seniors Kim Boggan and Natalie Perrino and sophomore Sue Welenc due to injury. The trio will be in uniform this time around.

“The good news is that all three players that were out, came back,” Bruno noted. “The bad news is that they are physically back, but still not one hundred percent.”

Even though all NIU players were healthy, Albright feels her team will be playing with a new identity also.

“We’re a different team too,” Albright said. “We’ve gained a lot more experience since then. I think the Alaska trip helped us find more character also.”

Three definite mainstay’s in the NIU program will be on the floor. Seniors, Foss, Denise Dove and Toby Meeks will be suiting up for their last regular-season game on the hardwood of Chick Evans. Albright can’t think of a better way for them to go out than with a sold-out crowd.

“It’d be a great gift for our seniors,” Albright said. “A packed house would leave a great image in their minds.”

As of Wednesday, all general public seats have been sold out, leaving only the 3,000 student seats to fill.

Ticket manager Tom Freidel reminds students that tickets become available at 8 a.m. Thursday morning. But if students fail to pick up a ticket during the day, Freidel urges them to still come to the game because pick-up continues until all 3,000 seats are taken.