Eager to forget the Northwestern loss, the NIU women’s basketball team boarded the bus to Dayton, Ohio Wednesday.

The Huskies will try to get back on the winning track when they take on North Star Conference opponent Wright State University Thursday night.

NIU coach Jane Albright feels there is a definite advantage to the Huskies playing so soon after being humiliated in Evanston Tuesday night, 91-66.

“This will be a good check point for us,” Albright said. “It’s good to play so soon, so we can put the Northwestern game behind us.”

Albright used an analogy when putting the Huskie’s first loss in the last 11 games into perspective.

At the halfway point of the NSC season last year, NIU traveled to the University of Tennessee. The Volunteers were ranked in the top five in the nation and Albright was going up against her former mentor, Pat Summit.

Tennessee made easy work of the Huskies, 83-62. The scoring machine from DeKalb which ended up leading the nation (94.5 ppg) was shut down. But the Huskies bounced back to take the last eight games of the season, win the conference with a perfect 12-0 mark and succeed in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Talk about deja vu. NIU got pounded by Northwestern at just about the same point of the this season that Tennessee thumped the Huskies last year. Staring the Huskies in the face is a very similar schedule with everyone except Akron and Cleveland State left to play in the North Star. And the Huskies have another chance to go undefeated in the league and extend their NSC winning streak to 25.

“Tennessee humiliated us at about the same time last year,” Albright said. “And we bounced back. We still have time to fix the things that are broken.”

As far as getting back on that winning track, the Huskies have to get past the Raiders of Wright State—a task NIU easily accomplished back in January (91-52).

“The second time around is always harder,” Albright said. “One thing you don’t want to do is let your guard down for anyone, especially on the road.”

Wright State will be looking to snap a four-game losing skid which has contributed to the Raiders 3-19 overall and 2-7 NSC records.

If the 33rd-ranked Huskies plan on having any success, they must shoot the ball better. In the Northwestern contest, NIU shot just 38 percent from the field (29-75). In last Saturday’s NSC action versus Akron, the Huskies only hit 30-of-69 buckets for the afternoon.

“We still have the same goals as before the Northwestern game,” Albright said. “We got some good film from the game and we know what we have to work on.”

NSC games are the most important to the Huskies because the winner of the conference gets an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, where the Huskies could see Northwestern again.

“Every league game is important to us,” Albright said. “Right now we’ll take any kind of win.”