The NIU women’s basketball team has played six straight games against MAC East opponents. The Huskies went 3-3 in those games.

Stephanie Raymond said her team will be ready the next time they play.

“These three teams are in top of the MAC. And we’ve kept with them,” Raymond said. “There are a lot of people out there that look at us at the bottom. If we can stay with the top three teams in the MAC, that says a lot come tournament time because we are going be looking for revenge.”

Staying home

The Huskies’ three-game home stand started with a loss to Kent State Saturday. And their next two opponents won’t be pushovers. The Huskies will host two other teams over .500, Eastern Michigan (16-6 overall, 10-1 MAC) and Central Michigan (14-8, 5-6).

The down Lowe

The Huskies have been seeing solid play from guard Whitney Lowe. In the last three games, Lowe has averaged 13.3 points per game. Her season average is 5.5 ppg.

MAC nominees

After tying her career-high 24 points Saturday, junior center Kristin Wiener is a nominee for MAC West Player of the Week.

Rewriting the books

Raymond may not be done with NIU record books yet. The guard needs just nine more three pointers to move into third on the all-time list. Raymond is 12th in career steals for NIU with 192; with two more she can move into 11th.

The brains of the group

NIU women’s basketball team has the highest grade point average of all NIU sports.

For fall 2005 the team’s collective GPA was 3.5.

Wiener, Jennifer Uptmor and Jessie Wilcox all had a 4.0 GPA for the fall semester.

Licking their wounds

A lumbar spine injury will keep freshman forward Kacia Gillette out for the remainder of the season.

Meanwhile, Margaret Batteast has a left ankle sprain that has her listed as day-to-day.