Once again, NIU men’s basketball hits the road in search of its first conference road victory when it faces Ohio tonight at 6 p.m.

The Huskies (6-13 overall, 2-5 MAC) are back in full form following the one-game suspensions of guards Darion ‘Jake’ Anderson and Jeremy Landers.

NIU contends with an Ohio team that features the MAC-leading scorer and rebounder Jerome Tillman. The forward averages 18.7 points and 8.9 rebounds per game.

However, it is not the Bobcat offense the Huskies are worried about. The Huskies are constantly plagued with turnovers and poor free throw percentages.

The Huskies are shooting 57.7 percent form the line this season and 50.4 percent in conference play.

“After Saturday’s loss, as a team we decided to come and shoot free throws for a couple of hours,” said junior Sean Kowal. “It’s something we need to focus on especially toward the end of the season.”

According to NIU head coach Ricardo Patton, the Huskies must first look at themselves before they start to analyze any opponents.

“I can tell you my focus is more on us than it is on the opponent at this point,” Patton said. “I always like to tell our players, ‘Our progress is qualitative more than quantitative.’ We have to do the things we do better, at a better quality than adding anymore things. We don’t need anymore plays, we don’t need to add anymore defenses, we need to do what we do and do it better.”

The Bobcats (10-10 overall, 3-4 MAC) are currently on a three-game losing streak, but have won 21 of its last 23 home matches and nine of its last 11 MAC contests at home.

Ohio enters tonight’s contest as the league’s best three-point shooting team.

However, the two teams’ scoring averages are nearly identical with the Bobcats, gaining the slight edge with 69.9 points per game to the Huskies’ 65.7 points per game.

The bottom line, Patton says, is the Huskies need to do a better job of taking care of the ball and refrain from hurting themselves.

“Most of our problems have been self-inflicted,” Patton said. “We played well defensively at times and ended up getting steals and turned the ball right back over. Not blocking out, giving teams second chance opportunities, those are all self-inflicted wounds in my mind.”