While Charlie Sadler and his football team prepare to hang up their helmets and spikes for another year, Brian Hammel and the NIU men’s basketball team are warming up their high tops.

After last season’s misfortunes, which ended with no more than six lettermen and eight total players, Hammel and his men are ready to start the season.

Tonight at 7:05 in Chick Evans Field House, the Huskies will take on the Czechoslovakian Select Team, known as Slavia VS Prague, to open up their pre-season.

This is the first of an eight-game road trip for the Czech team, so Hammel does not know what to expect from his opponent since there is not yet a scouting report.

“I know they are a very good team,” said Hammel. “They are big and strong and have been playing together for a long time.”

The average age of the team is between 24-25. Four men from the Slavia VS Prague team played for Czechoslovakia in the Summer Olympics in Barcelona.

Hammel has not yet decided his starting lineup for the season and will use the two exhibition games to test some players out.

“These games are exhibitions for the players as well as the coaches,” Hammel explained. “We have to see who plays well together.”

Several positions are up in the air, and he feels that with “so many players, we are two to three weeks away” from being where they want to be.

Hammel is trying to juggle his lineup to mix the seven returning lettermen with the nine newcomers.

Returning are seniors Randy Fens and David Mitchell, junior Steve Oldendorf and sophomores Mike Lipnisky, Marlin Simms, Hubert Register and Tim O’Rourke.

The new class is led by transfers Randy Tucker and Eldridge Bolin. Tucker, who averaged 26.1 points per game last year at Joliet Junior College, is expected to start at point guard. Bolin had to sit out last season after transferring from Evansville.

The freshman class, which averaged better than 95 points per game collectively, is rated as one of the highest in the Midwest.

The freshmen are Mike Hartke, Clayton Stivers, Scott Peterson, Peter Rohlwing, Chad Weeks and walk-ons Russ Lipinski and O’Darie Weathers.