Android Socket.IO with Fragments

I have my application that is using Koush's web-sockets/Socket.IO library for just one fragment. (https://github.com/koush/android-websockets)

I am having some problems getting the Socket.IO client to work correctly with the fragment lifecycle and its threads.

For the most part, my fragment looks like this:

public class ScoresFragment extends SherlockFragment {

    public SocketIOClient socket;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        createSocket();
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    }

    @Override
    public void onPause() {
        try {
            this.socket.disconnect();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        super.onPause();
    }

    @Override
    public void onResume() {
        socket.connect();
        super.onResume();
    }

    public void createSocket() {
        this.socket = new SocketIOClient(URI.create("http://blah-url"), new SocketIOClient.Handler() {
            //Required methods here
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup group, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        //Everything for the layout here
    }
}

And the error I'm getting is in the onPause() method when I try to disconnect the socket. The socket connects just fine, but as soon as I change fragments I get a crash.

FATAL EXCEPTION: main
java.lang.NullPointerException
    at com.codebutler.android_websockets.SocketIOClient.cleanup(SocketIOClient.java:195)
    at com.codebutler.android_websockets.SocketIOClient.disconnect(SocketIOClient.java:188)
    at edu.bgsu.asf.athletics.fragments.ScoresFragment.onPause(ScoresFragment.java:14)

I read somewhere that I may have to be wary of threads and I may have to use a handler for this, but the git page for web-sockets doesn't allude to having to use anything like that. Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

The sections of SocketIOClient.java:

public void disconnect() throws IOException {
    cleanup(); //Line 188
}

/////////////////////////////////////////////

private void cleanup() {
    mClient.disconnect();
    mClient = null;

    mSendLooper.quit(); //Line 195
    mSendLooper = null;
    mSendHandler = null;
}