NIU men’s basketball coach Rob Judson knows that starting the season against two teams that qualified for the NCAA tournament a year ago is great for his program.

The Huskies will take on Winthrop at 6 p.m. tonight in Madison, Wis., as part of the NABC Classic. Four teams are participating in the tournament including Eastern Washington and the host Badgers.

Last season, Winthrop advanced to the tournament as a No. 16 seed after claiming its fourth consecutive Big South crown. However, in the first game of the NCAA tournament, Duke handed the Eagles an 84-37 loss in Greenville, S.C.

“They’ve won their conference the last four years and made it to the NCAA tournament, so they’re a good, established program,” Judson said.

Wisconsin is the other team that made it to the Big Dance. The Badgers defeated St.John’s 80-70 in the first round before losing to eventual tournament champion Maryland in the second round, 87-57.

NIU will face the Badgers in the NABC classic championship game only if both teams win, or lose, their opening matchup on Friday night.

NIU will be without senior Mike Morrison as he is sidelined with torn cartilage in his knee. Losing their largest player on the team presents a problem for the Huskies.

“We’ll have to be very active defensively,” Judson said. “We’ll have to pressure and use our pressure to disrupt them so that our quickness is our advantage as opposed to our lack of size.”

The starting lineup for tonight’s game will be Jay Bates and Perry Smith at guard, and Jamel Staten, Rome Sanders and Marcus Smallwood at forward.

“They’re a team that is similar in size to us,” Judson said. “They have one big inside player that’s kind of built like Morrison, Josh Grant who is a sophomore about 6-foot-10. But then they have a lot of 6-foot-6, 6-foot-7 guys like we do.”

Junior Marcus Smallwood is coming off of a preseason that saw him average 17.5 points and 13 rebounds in two exhibition contests. Senior Jay Bates contributed 15 points a game and 2.5 steals.

Bates will be the lone senior on the floor for NIU until Morrison returns. According to Judson that should be 4-6 weeks after having surgery, which is expected soon.

“This tournament is really big and that’s why we planned it,” Judson said. “We feel really good about getting in this tournament because its an exempt tournament, which doesn’t count against the number of games you can play. Also it was in Madison which fit us even better. Having these two games early in the season, we can really make progress.”