What’s happening

Men’s basketball (10-15, 4-10 MAC) heads out on the road to take another shot at beating the Toledo Rockets (18-9, 10-4 MAC) 8 p.m. Wednesday in Toledo, Ohio. The Rockets came out on top, 80-69, when the Huskies met them Jan. 31 in DeKalb.

Breakdown

The Rockets have been hot, winning eight of their last nine game and shooting up the standings to the No. 3 team in the conference. They’ve ridden their offense; in their last game — Saturday against the Western Michigan Broncos — the Rockets scored 97 points in regulation.

With four players averaging double-digit point totals, the Rockets are going to pose a challenge for the Huskies. Toledo thrives on getting to the line, which is something NIU will need to lock down on. Rockets’ senior Julius Brown is one of the best free-throw shooters in the country, making 86 percent of his attempts, and is one of the MAC’s top offensive threats, averaging 16.7 points per game.

Stopping the Toledo offense in the paint will be a big key for the Huskies, who are short-handed in the frontcourt with junior Darrell Bowie and redshirt senior Pete Rakocevic out again. NIU will have to lean on redshirt senior Jordan Threloff, redshirt freshman Marin Maric and redshirt junior Keith Gray for the majority of the game to slow down the Rockets’ big men, including junior Nathan Boothe and senior J.D. Weatherspoon.

Players to watch

NIU junior Travon Baker has been a big factor in shutting down opposing points guards. He played a big role in limiting Central Michigan’s Chris Fowler and Eastern Michigan’s Raven Lee. If Baker can stay out of foul trouble the Huskies should be able to keep this a much closer game than last time.

Toledo senior Justin Drummond was perfect in his 12 trips to the free-throw line in his last meeting with the Huskies, and he has only missed one free throw in 30 attempts since then. If he gets to the line frequently Tuesday it’ll be a boon for Toledo.

The quotes

“We went back and looked at the tape, and we [showed them] the tape again,” said head coach Mark Montgomery. “We’re going to have to move our feet, and you have to adjust to how officials are calling games. But, we’re going to play in a little more zone, too, to try to slow Toledo down. But, you have to make sure you take of that ball, because when they get out in transition, they’re awfully tough to stop.”

“We need to be more aggressive going to the glass, more aggressive on our cut-outs and our shot contests,” said sophomore Aaric Armstead. “… I think that we’ll be able to get to the line more often if we just stay aggressive.”

“Our big emphasis is we have to take care of the ball,” Montgomery said. “The last two games we’ve turned the ball over way too much, and then we settled down with usually 10 minutes to go [in the first half]. We can’t wait. We have to take care of the ball from the beginning.”