Of the 33 times the Hawks have faced the Sixers on the road, Adelaide have prevailed a whopping 27 times.

"We've struggled as a club in Adelaide for quite a while now - it's been a test for a number of years," Wollongong coach Eric Cooks said. "Having said that, this is a different team and a different year, and we have played this team earlier on our home court and won.

"Adelaide are the kind of team that like leading from the front. They like to get an early lead and get the crowd involved, so it's real important that we come out ready to play the type of defence we want to play and not let them get comfortable."

Wollongong won the previous meeting by 10, but Adelaide will be a much tougher proposition with the recent addition of mercurial forward Julius Hodge.

"Hodge will make some difference, but we dealt with a lot of their players pretty well last time and limited them to reasonable numbers," Cooks said.

"If we continue to limit their inside players and not give guys like (Brett) Maher and (Aaron) Bruce open looks, that will go a long way towards getting a win.

"This week we've focused on getting back to how we were playing defence when we were limiting teams to around our target of 88 or 90 points, and that's what we've got to get back to doing. Adelaide like to get up and down the court and the last thing we want is a score of 125-120. We need to stop them getting into a flow."

Wollongong have dropped their past two games to be sharing fifth spot with Townsville.

They return home to host the league-leading South Dragons on Wednesday night before hitting the road for three straight games.

"A win (tonight) keeps us right in the thick of it," Cooks said.

"We've got quite a tough little stretch of road games coming up and we need to start showing that consistency away from home and play our style of basketball.

"We're expecting no favours in Adelaide."

Hawks forward Glen Saville will get the defensive assignment on Hodge, while guards Mat Campbell and Kavossy Franklin will match up on Maher and Bruce.

Wollongong are outsiders in the betting markets, with TAB Sportsbet paying $1.22 for a Sixers win and $4 for a Hawks victory.