One down, three to go.

If the NIU women’s basketball team hopes to make it to the MAC championship, it’s going to have to get past the best team in the conference.

The No. 5 seed Huskies face No. 1 seed and No. 24-ranked Bowling Green at 4:30 p.m. tonight at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland.

The winner of this game will play the winner of the Toledo versus Western Michigan match up.

Bowling Green (25-2 overall, 16-0 MAC) comes in the tournament fresh off a bye week. In the regular season the Falcons dominated all major statistical categories in the MAC.

Bowling Green was second in scoring offense at 69.5 points per game, second in defense scoring at 56.5 ppg and first in scoring margins against its opponents at 13.

The two teams met earlier this season, with the Falcons winning 66-58. In that game NIU’s (13-16, 8-9) leading scorer was Mary Basic with 15 points.

Bowling Green shot 42 percent Feb. 8 and had three players score in double digits.

But despite how well the Falcons play, NIU coach Carol Owens said she likes her team’s chances.

“We need to take care of the ball,” Owens said. “We held their best player, Ali Mann, to a season low the last game. This is the time of the year that you see the best teams fall.”

The Huskies will look for their triplets to play as well as they did in the first round.

In the first round Basic, Kristin Wiener and Stephanie Raymond combined for 67 of the team’s 73 total points.

Owens said she would like to see another stronger performance out of them.

“These are the people you want to do that,” Owens said. “These are the three people day in, day out that need to bring it every night.”