During part of ESPN’s Bracketbuster Challenge, the NIU men’s basketball team will play Bradley at 7:05 p.m. Saturday at the Peoria Civic Center.

Bradley (12-14) has won two straight games and four of its past six since the return of preseason co-player of the year in the Missouri Valley Conference, Phillip Gilbert.

Gilbert put up his best statistical game of the season on Saturday when the East St. Louis native scored 15 points on 3-of-4 three-point shooting against Northern Iowa.

NIU (7-17) has lost nine straight games and 11 of its last 12. The last victory for the Huskies came Jan. 14 against Eastern Michigan.

The Bracketbuster event pits teams from mid-major conferences against each other. All teams in the MAC will participate in this event.

“The bracketbuster is really a quality event,” NIU coach Rob Judson said. “It will be a good experience for our team.”

As a condition of the event, Bradley will make a trip to DeKalb for a game next season.

Judson was an assistant for five seasons at Bradley from 1991 to 1996. He followed coach Jim Molinari to Peoria after being an assistant to Molinari for two seasons at NIU.

In the two seasons in DeKalb, Molinari compiled a 42-17 record and led the Huskies to an NCAA tournament birth in his final season.

“I have a lot of friends in Peoria from when I coached there and recruiting, and it’s a great city,” Judson said.

NIU forward Todd Peterson also has ties to the central Illinois area.

Peterson played high school basketball at Pekin, less than 10 miles from Peoria.

Peterson has two former high school teammates at Bradley, one as a walk-on and one as a team manager.

“This summer, I played with a lot of those guys, and I’m really looking forward to it,” Peterson said.

Senior Marcus Smallwood also played at Carver Arena his sophomore year at Elgin High School.

That year, Elgin made the Illinois High School Association Class AA State Tournament’s Elite Eight, which is held in Peoria.

“We just got to go down and play hard,” Smallwood said. “They don’t know much about us, and we don’t know much about them.”