Huskies might not be native to the American Southwest, but there will be over a dozen running through Beaumont, Texas tonight. NIU’s mens’ basketball team (11-9) hits the road tonight at 7:30 to take on the Lamar Cardinals.

Lamar has struggled through a 6-15 season for coach Tony Branch, losing its last outing prior to tonight’s contest 88-78 to Arkansas State. The Cardinals are led by senior guard David Jones (14.8 ppg.) and post-man Daryl Reed. Reed is among the Top 10 in the American South Conference in scoring, blocked shots, rebounding, and field-goal percentage.

Huskie head-man Jim Molinari feels that coming away from Lamar with a victory will be a difficult task for his team.

“I think Lamar will be a real tough game. They’ve had great success at home over the years, winning 70 percent of their games. They’ve had some injuries but Reed has come in and played well.”

Molinari doesn’t expect the Cardinals to use up much of the 45-second shot clock during the game.

“I’m sure they’ll play up-tempo. They’re very strong, athletic, and they are going to play their game and really come at us.”

The Huskies are coming off of their most convincing win of the season, 84-52 over Florida International.

The 32-point win was the largest victory margin for NIU since the first game of last season, when the Huskies demolished Bethel College 120-75. The previous biggest winning margin for NIU this season was an 88-67 thumping of Montana State in NIU’s third game.

Donnell “D-Train” Thomas is averaging 18.1 points per game after his 21-point effort against FI. The Huskies’ 9th leading all-time scorer also added 11 boards in the blowout and is leading NIU with a 7.9 rebounds per-game clip.

The Huskies will be without sophomore guard Bobby Smith for the rest of the season. Molinari announced that Smith was leaving the club to concentrate on academics prior to the FI game.

“I think Bobby thought about it and he decided that he had problems academically in the first semester and that he now wanted to concentrate on his school-work,” Molinari said.

Smith, a transfer from Oral Roberts, was academically ineligible for the fall semester, but had regained his eligibility for the current term. “I really respect the way he battled (academically) in the first semester.

“What gets lost is the demands on student-athletes in terms of time, travel and class demands. I respect the way he handled it,” Molinari added.

Smith played in 11 NIU games this season, including three starts. The Country Club Hills native had six points in 141 minutes of action for the Huskies.