Timing is important to a basketball team, and for the women’s basketball team the Christmas break schedule couldn’t have come at a better time.

While everyone migrates home for the holiday season, the Huskies will have a six game schedule of which four of them are home games. Five of them will be against conference opponents.

NIU will have three straight home games to begin the break. They will face Southern Illinois University and Eastern Illinois University Dec. 17 and 30 respectively, and will face Wright State University Jan. 3. After traveling to the University of Illinois-Chicago Jan. 6 and Valparaiso University Jan. 9, the Huskies will return to Chick Evans Fieldhouse for a game against Western Illinois University Jan. 13.

SIU will be the only non-conference game on the schedule for the Huskies.

“Southern gets you tuned up for your conference,” said head coach Jane Albright-Dieterle. “I think that’s what we’ll be trying to do is get ready.”

The coming of the conference schedule will be at a perfect time also. The Huskies are now 0-3 after facing top non-conference opponents.

“They (conference rivals) haven’t been across the country or playing top teams,” commented Albright-Dieterle. “When we walk into the gym, they’re ready to knock us off.”

That perhaps could be the challenging factor for the Huskies. They’ve come off three tough losses and will go into conference play with no regular season wins.

“The challenge for us is not to lose our confidence,” explained Albright-Dieterle. “We’re at the bottom of the league and the other people have played and won so they’ll come in thinking, ‘Hey man, we are something.'”

The Huskies will get their first bite at the Mid-Con when Eastern comes to town. Albright-Dieterle believes NIU will be ready. They have two weeks to prepare for the conference matchup, and she expects to have her team in better condition. She also expects the continuity problems to be cleared up.

“After those couple weeks, we will be very prepared,” she said. “We’ll have a new look and we are going to have a new offense.”

In the mean time the women will have another opportunity to fine tune their game when they face the Athletes in Action team in an exhibition game Dec. 15 at the field house. The AIA team is a collection of former collegiate basketball players and is currently in its fourth season.

The AIA team will feature two local faces in former Illinois State Redbird and Rochelle native Caryn Bruce and former NIU star Lisa Foss.

“I think Lisa is undoubtedly the best shooter that’s ever been in this gym, period, of anybody I’ve ever seen,” said Albright-Dieterle. “I just hope she doesn’t have her career high against me in her own gym. She’s just a pure shooter.”

This game, as well as the four other home games, are scheduled to begin at 7:00 pm.