Moments after Thursday night`s 75-66 loss to Wisconsin-Green Bay, the ever-optimistic Jane Albright-Dieterle said, ”Maybe the third time will be the charm.”
If it is-and that`s a big if-the Northern Illinois women`s basketball coach will be taking her team to the NCAA tournament.
The Huskies (14-13) play host to the North Star Conference tournament Thursday through Saturday. Second-seeded NIU opens its title quest at 7:30 p.m. Thursday against Illinois-Chicago. Cleveland State and Wright State play the opener at 2:30, followed by No. 3 Valparaiso and Akron. Green Bay, which ran through the conference untouched at 12-0, gets a first-round bye and plays the winner of the opener at 5 p.m. Friday.
The title game is 3 p.m. Saturday.
”This is the third season now,” said Albright-Dieterle, whose club lost its last three during the second season. ”We`re disappointed in the other two parts of the season, but the way things are structured, if you do well in the third season, you forget about the first two.”
Tourney, Part II: The men`s basketball team meets Illinois-Chicago Sunday in its Mid-Continent Conference tournament opener. The sixth-seeded Huskies
(11-16) split with UIC during the regular season, winning 85-81 and losing 95-90. NIU is coming off a 96-90 double-overtime victory Saturday over Texas Tech.
”It`s a little stepping stone, but not a great boost (heading into the tournament),” said coach Brian Hammel. ”We have to play 40 (minutes), 40 and 40. It`s a tremendous opportunity, but a difficult chore with our depth problem (nine players).”
Tourney, Part III: T.C. Dantzler (13-3) is Northern`s top hope at Saturday`s NCAA West Regional in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The 158-pounder has reached the NCAA tournament the last two years and will try to keep alive a string of 20 straight years in which a Huskie wrestler has qualified for the NCAA tourney. He recorded a pin Friday in NIU`s 39-10 loss to Central Michigan.