The wait is over for the NIU women’s basketball team.

The team opens up the season tonight at home in an exhibition game against Robert Morris College.

Fans will see some familiar faces on the court as well as some freshman and transfers that will be making their debut.

Similar to last season, the team will be led by tri-captains who were voted for by the players. Unlike last season’s captains, who were all seniors, this year’s bunch are all juniors.

Guard Jessie Wilcox, who was voted preseason First-Team All-MAC, heads the group and is joined by guard Tara Michels and forward Becky Smith.

“Jessie has really been a vocal leader,” NIU coach Carol Owens said. “Tara has fought hard and Becky is coming off a pretty impressive run in the MAC Tournament last year.”

Another key player returning for the Huskies is senior guard Whitney Lowe.

Lowe filled up the box scores last season, averaging 8.4 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.

“I’m so excited for the season to start,” Lowe said. “Practice is good, but it’s not quite as good as games.”

Sophomore guard Kylie York will also provide some range for NIU. Coming off the bench last season, York averaged over five points per game, while shooting better than 38 percent from three-point territory.

What remains to be seen from this season’s squad is how much of an impact some of the new faces will make.

“We are very young, but we work well together,” Lowe said. “We all want to win and we set the standards really high last year.”

Some of the key newcomers include freshmen Mauvolyene Adams, Charmaine Bell, Bianca Brown and Ebony Ellis and transfers Aileen Rossouw from Auburn and Shari’ Welton from Wisconsin.

“This is a young group,” Michels said. “Hopefully, the upperclassmen will be able to lead by example. We definitely have a defense-oriented mind-set this season.”

That defensive mind-set is what Owens hopes her players will buy into.

Last season, NIU was eighth in the MAC in points allowed, leaving them plenty of room to improve.

“Defense is something you have to work at,” Adams said. “It takes a lot of hard work, but it’s worth it.”

As they did last season, the Huskies will face a tough non-conference schedule that is highlighted by a late November trip to Cancun, Mexico, where they will play Michigan State and Tulane. Another stand-out game on the schedule is on Dec. 17, when NIU will host DePaul.

“We are not avoiding competition this year,” Owens said. “We would like to be at those teams playing levels at some point in the season. When E.C. [Hill] and I played together here, we were ranked in the top 25, and that is where we would like to be this year.

“To do that, we have to go through some of the best teams. Most of all, we want to be competitive in our conference and that is why we scheduled some of these tougher teams.”