The NIU men’s basketball team’s battle to notch 20 wins this season faces a major obstacle Monday: a revenge-minded Eastern Illinois squad coming off of a 63-56 upset over conference power Wisconsin-Green Bay.

The Huskies (19-2, 10-1) face an imposing stretch of road games as the season winds down. After Monday’s 7:30 road match with the Panthers, NIU travels to Wisconsin-Green Bay Saturday and faces Top-20 Nebraska next Monday.

But first, the Huskies face an Eastern squad that fell at Chick Evans Field House 59-47 two weeks ago. The highly-physical game was labeled a “slugfest” by some of the participants, which brings up the probability of an equally rugged return match on Monday.

“I would suspect it will be,” Panthers head coach Rick Samuels said. “It was a hard-fought basketball game, Northern plays very aggressive basketball.”

The biggest difference Monday may turn out to be the game’s site: Eastern’s cozy Lantz Gym. “We hope the homecourt is the advantage we have,” Samuels said. “It’ll be a good-size crowd, a boisterous crowd.”

The Panthers (11-8, 6-3) are on a high coming off of Saturday’s home-court triumph over Wisconsin-Green Bay (15-6, 7-3) that moved Eastern to within a game of second place in the Mid-Continent Conference.

“We will be even more confident, more importantly, we’ve climbed a notch. We can see the top and the top is coming to us,” Samuels said.

The top is where the Huskies have been all year. With five conference games left, first-place NIU (10-1) is in the drivers seat to capture the No. 1 seed at next month’s M-C Tournament at Green Bay. The winner of the tournament earns an automatic NCAA bid.

With a victory Monday, NIU would reach the 20-win mark for the first time since 1971-72’s 21-4 squad. Three wins in the Huskies’ final six games would give NIU its best season-record ever.

The Huskies are also looking to extend their seven-game winning streak. NIU’s last loss was on January 19 to Wisconsin-Green Bay.

After NIU’s current three-game road stretch, the Huskies return home for the final time in 1990-91 for matches on Feb. 23 and 25 against Cleveland State and Akron, respectively.