Rob Judson and the NIU basketball team welcome Akron at 7:05 p.m. today at the Convocation Center, where NIU will try to extend its conference-long winning streak to six games.

Akron has the MAC’s leading scorer, Derrick Tarver, while NIU doesn’t have anyone atop the scoring leaderboard. However, Akron is 2-5 in the standings while the Huskies are tied for first place at 5-2.

Tarver (22.2 points) and guard Jonathon Hollingsworth, who is eighth in the league in scoring at 17.8 points, are both junior transfers and make the Zips an explosive team.

“Akron’s an excellent offensive team,” NIU coach Rob Judson said. “Their two guards, Hollingsworth and Tarver, can score and they take care of the basketball. Their offensive ability will be a big challenge for us.”

Akron ranks in the top half of the conference in scoring (third), free-throw percentage (second), field-goal percentage (fifth) and turnovers per game (first).

To balance that out, the Zips also rank in the bottom half of the MAC in scoring defense (11th), field-goal percentage defense (last) and rebounding margin (last).

A big reason for NIU’s recent success has been its play on the road within the MAC. The Huskies are 4-0 in MAC away games and 1-2 at home in the conference.

“We need to bring the focus that we have on the road to home games,” senior captain Mike Morrison said. “We hope to get a good crowd for our games tomorrow and Saturday. Against Eastern Michigan we had a pretty big crowd and that really propelled us to the win. So just by the fans showing up they give us that extra focus.”