Two days after losing to MAC-leading Ohio, the NIU women’s volleyball team looks to improve its conference seeding this weekend with the MAC tournament 11 days away.

NIU (9-18 overall, 4-8 MAC) begins weekend play at 7 p.m. today versus Central Michigan and wraps up against Ball State at 7 p.m. Saturday. Both games are at Victor E. Court.

The Huskies hold the No. 10 seed for the MAC tournament starting Nov. 16. NIU coach Ray Gooden hopes to win the remaining four conference home matches so the Huskies can have a shot to host the first-round match.

“We have to step up and play good aggressive volleyball,” Gooden said. “We’re going to need balance, be very physical and play really good defense. If we can play good hard volleyball like we did the first two games against Ohio, we can be pretty good.”

NIU has not faced Central Michigan this season, but the Huskies look to avenge their 3-0 loss at Ball State two weeks ago. Central Michigan (6-18, 3-10) is currently the No. 12 seed in the MAC while Ball State (17-6, 10-1) is the No. 2 seed behind Ohio.

“I think we need different players to step up and make points,” Lobdell said. “The ball goes to Kate and I most of the time, but when the other players have chances, we have to execute like we did in Games 1 and 2 against Ohio.”

NIU has had seven assistant football coaching changes in the past two years.

The University of Illinois, a member of the Big Ten – a Bowl Championship Series member – has taken two football assistants from NIU in the past two years. A total of four on the U of I staff have prior coaching experience at NIU.

“We are not unique,” Novak said about losing coaches to larger schools. “There are coaches from my staff that can go to the Big Ten and double their salary.”

It’s hard for any team in the MAC to achieve consistent success, because when one coach does well he can move on to a bigger school and larger salary, Novak said.

He realizes NIU never will be on the same playing field with a Penn State, also a member of the Big Ten. Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno has held the same position for the past 56 years and had a stretch of almost 20 years where he had the same assistants.

“Any time you have a coaching turnover, it’s hard for the players,” Novak added. “Let’s look at football; when I leave they’ll probably have a completely new philosophy for the players. Joe Paterno had the same staff for nearly 20 years. That is an advantage.”

Huskies at bottom half of MAC

NIU Athletics Director Jim Phillips said he did his research on Huskies athletics before he accepted NIU President John Peters’ offer Aug. 23.

The fact that NIU had won only one MAC title in the past three years was no surprise to Phillips.

Another stat that helps illustrate NIU’s lack of success is the annual Jacoby/Reese Trophy Winners, Phillips said.

The trophies are given each year to the MAC school with the most success in all sports combined. This award is graded on a sliding scale for how each team finishes in conference play. The Reese trophy is given yearly to the school that achieves the most success in men’s sports and the Jacoby to the women’s program.

NIU is one of five teams that has not won either of the trophies since the 1997-98 season.

The closest NIU has gotten to the award was a second-place finish in the 1998-99 season for the Jacoby and a third-place finish in the 2002-03 season for the Reese. Aside from that, the Huskies have finished worse than 10th in the league six times, including a string of four seasons in a row with 12th-place finishes for the men, from 1997-98 to 2000-01.

These facts don’t deter Phillips, who last year was a senior associate athletics director at Notre Dame, from having dreams of grandeur.

“Any time you have a turnover in coaching, it becomes a little more challenging,” Phillips said. “The more fluid and solid your programs are from a continuity standpoint I think that can only help. You want the continuity, but there’s a lot of competing interest for the coaches. We want to take NIU from the bottom of the list to the top.”