NIU basketball’s Perry Smith and Toledo’s Florentino Valencia are related, but their close relationship off the court will not be a factor when the two teams square off this weekend.

When they were growing up, Smith remembers how they would have wrestling matches at Valencia’s house and imitate their WWF heroes. Neither player counts on the chance of wrestling-style physical play at 5:05 p.m. Saturday at the Convocation Center.

“We are cousins, but we aren’t cousins right now when we go against each other,” said Valencia, whose mother is Smith’s father’s aunt, making them second cousins. “I have to play it like any other game. If there’s a loose ball, I’ll knock him down.”

Valencia, a freshman from Chicago Crane High School, started the last four games for Toledo. The Rockets are in second place in the MAC West with a 14-4 overall record and 8-2 in conference.

Smith is the conference’s 13th-ranked scorer with a 12.2 points per game average and was voted preseason All-MAC. NIU comes into the game with an overall 7-11 record and 2-6 in the MAC.

Smith, a fifth-year senior who sat out a year after he transferred from Illinois State, is four years older than Valencia.

“He used to always come to my birthday parties,” Valencia said. “We are real close cousins. I used to go over to his house and spend the night – before he went to NIU.”

The combo worked together at a local grocery store when they were younger and had a close-knit relationship. One thing they never did, however, was play a game of one-on-one.

“We both hate to lose and knew it would come to something else,” said Smith, who went to Proviso East High School. “We are real close. We hung out and did a lot of things together.”

This will be Valencia’s second return to Illinois this season. He scored a career-high 14 points on 7-of-7 shooting from the field in a win against DePaul on Dec. 20.

For some pre-game trash-talking, the 6-foot-6 rookie forward called Smith on Jan. 21. The two said they talk once every other week.

“I told him how we were going to whoop them,” Valencia said. “I was calling him because I saw they’ve been losing a little, and I was just wondering what was going on.”

NIU coach Rob Judson knows what it is like to face a family member in athletic competition. In the late 1980s while at Glenbrook South High School, he coached against his dad, who headed the Zion-Benton program.

“Whenever you play against a family member, you always want to play your best and be successful,” Judson said.

Smith said he just wants his team to win.

“Whatever it takes to win, I’ll do,” Smith said. “But when it’s all said and done, it will be a big hug and it will be over and done with.”