It’s out of the frying pan and into the fire for the Huskie basketball team.

On the heels of NIU’s 70-67 loss in Miami to Florida International last Saturday, the Huskies (9-8) hit the road again to face a tough 13-8 Evansville squad tonight at 7:30.

Coach Jim Molinari and company are looking to turn around their 1-7 road record against a team that has won three straight contests. The Aces have chalked up impressive wins this season against Marquette (70-66) and 20th-ranked Xavier (Ohio) 59-51.

“They had some great wins last week (against Loyola and Marquette) and they’re a tremendous team,” said Molinari. “Evansville is the kind of program that we would like to pattern ourselves after.”

NIU’s road woes this season continued with Saturday’s loss to an FI squad that has only managed four victories against 14 losses. The Huskies will have their work cut out for them aginst Evansville, which was undefeated last year at Roberts Stadium.

“I don’t think we’re doing the things on the road yet to win. You can get away with not shooting well at home but not on the road,” said Molinari.

The first-year coach doesn’t expect a quick tempo against the Aces.

“It’ll be very slow and physical,” said Molinari. “It’ll be a war like the Loyola game. What we have to do is shoot the ball well and play our game. The key is to make them shoot a poorer percentage than us.”

Despite the loss earlier in the season of two key players, 6-foot-10 Dan Godfread and 6-9 Mark Jewell, the Aces are tied for the lead in the Midwestern Collegiate Conference.

The game will be the first meeting between the Huskies and the defending MCC Champions, who finished 25-6 overall last season and 10-2 in the MCC.

Like his mentor, Indiana’s Bobby Knight, Coach Jim Crews stresses solid defense. His Aces were ranked eighth in team field-goal defense (.396) last week. Evansville was also rated number seven nationally in team field-goal percentage (.532).

NIU’s Donnell “D-Train” Thomas moved into the number twelve spot on NIU’s all-time scoring list with 21 points in the Florida International game. The 6-4 junior is on track to move into the Top 10 against Evansville. Thomas needs seven points to tie John Olson for the tenth spot in NIU’s scoring annals with 1,137 points.

Thomas is leading the Huskies in scoring with an 18 point average and in rebounding with 8 boards per game.

To date, NIU’s road problems began in the season opener at Iona. A 71-64 loss didn’t start the year of right. The road losses continued with Southern Illinois (71-56), Northern Iowa (63-59), Minnesota (81-62), Wisconsin-Green Bay (60-56), Missouri-Kansas City (69-51) and Florida International (70-67). The Huskies only road win this season was against Valparaiso (68-59).

Conversely, NIU’s only home loss—at Chick Evans Field House—came against Northern Iowa. The Huskies get a chance to reddem themselves when Florida International comes to DeKalb on Feb. 8.

Attendance at the fieldhouse is up slightly from the ‘88-89 season. The largest crowd at Evans this season was 4,062 when NIU played host to Montana State. Other large turnouts were 3,311 (Nebraska) and 3,058 (Loyola). On the road NIU saw 12,603 show up at Minnesota.