Most basketball coaches look at a conference tournament as a second season, and NIU women’s basketball coach Jane Albright believes in that “March Madness” philosophy.

When the Huskies kickoff the inaugural North Star Conference Tournament against Cleveland State today at noon at DePaul’s Alumni Hall, NIU’s record will be 0-0. Although the Huskies finished the regular season with a 21-6 overall mark and a 12-2 ledger in the NSC, Albright knows anything can happen.

“The challenge that you have going into any tournament is that everything is equal now,” Albright said. “You have to take one game at a time, but you don’t have any preparation time. You can’t afford to be looking ahead.”

Losing to Wisconsin-Green Bay 85-63 to end the season did not help the Huskies. The loss tied NIU with NSC rival DePaul for first-place honors, making the conference tournament important.

Until only a few weeks before the end of the season, it seemed as if NIU and the Blue Demons would be the only two teams contending for the top spot, but UW-GB made a move. Not only did the Phoenix knock off the Huskies, but the Blue Demons as well.

owever, before Albright and crew think about playing either DePaul or UW-GB, two games stand in the way. Besides the Cleveland St. game, the Huskies will have to face the winner of the Marquette-Akron matchup.

Statistics favor the Huskies in the first game. NIU handed CSU losses of 83-49 and 97-50 in their two NSC clashes. Both times NIU shot better than 50 percent from the field, while holding the Crusaders to less than 30 percent.

Albright would like to use the CSU game to get her team back on track before going any further.

“I think what we’ve got to see again is a team effort,” Albright explained. “All year long we’ve talked about our team balance. In some of the games we lost we didn’t have the team balance. We had a lot of different individuals and we didn’t have the continuity-the unity that we’ve got to have to win this tournament.

“We really basically have to band togeather rather than having pressure take us out of our game. We’ve got to establish a pressure. We all have to do that. We have to do a better job of getting the ball to Carol (Owens).”

The Crusaders (3-23, 2-12) are the last-place team in the NSC and are led by All-NSC forward Debra Taylor (15.8 points per game). Both of CSU’s conference wins were against Akron (14-13, 6-8).

Pacing the way for the Huskie scoring attack is 6-3 junior Carol Owens with 21.2 ppg and 9.7 rebounds per game. The towering center shares her post-play duties with 6-2 junior Tammy Hinchee. Hinchee boasts 19.1 ppg and 9.0 rpg heading into today’s contest. Both of the “Twin Towers” were named to the All-NSC First-Team unit on Monday.

If the Huskies win their first two games, they will play in the championship Saturday at 7 p.m. in Alumni Hall.