The Carthage College men's basketball team (7-4, 0-0 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), ranked 24th in the Dec. 21 "D3hoops.com" poll, closed out its non-conference schedule on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 2 with a 75-66 loss to Transylvania University (9-2) at the Beck Athletic Recreation Center in Lexington, Ky.  The win was the seventh in a row for Transylvania.

Carthage jumped out to a 9-2 lead in the opening minutes and led by as much as seven points, 18-11, at 11:42.  The Red Men still led by a point, 26-25, at 7:16 before the Pioneers used an 11-2 run to go up by eight points, 36-28, at 3:02.  Transylvania led by eight at the break, 40-32.  The Pioneers took their largest lead of the game at 13 points, 47-34 at 18:04 second half.  The Red Men whittled the lead down to seven points on two occasions, the last at 51-44 at 13:05.  Transylvania answered with a 10-2 run that upped its lead to 15 points, 61-46, at 10:33.  Carthage got as close as 10 points, 61-51, at 8:34, before Transylvania went back up by 15, 73-58, at 3:44.  A three-pointer by Nick Kladis at 2:38 brought the Red Men to within nine points, 74-65, but the Pioneers went on to win by nine, 75-66.

Transylvania shot 46 percent (23-50), while Carthage shot 42 percent (24-57).  The Pioneers out-rebounded the Red Men, 34-27, including 13 offensive rebounds, while connecting on 23-of-33 from the free-throw line.  Four Pioneers scored in double figures.  Ethan Spurlin and Michael Stone had 13 points each, with Spurlin collecting six rebounds.  Barrett Meyer had 12 points and Ashley Hatfield 11 points.  Steve Djurickovic (Sr., Pleasant Prairie, Wis./Kenosha-Bradford) scored a game-high 17 points despite fouling out  with two minutes to play.  Djurickovic connected on five-of-13 field goals, including zero-for-four from three-point range, along with seven-of-eight free throws, five rebounds and nine assists.  Tyler Pierce (So., Westmont, Ill.) and Mitch Thompson (So., Orland Park, Ill./Sandburg) had 11 points each, with Thompson pulling down five rebounds.

"After the first five or six minutes," said Carthage coach Bosko Djurickovic, "we never had control of the basketball game.  If you don't have control, it's a very difficult game to play.  We're not a tough-enough on-the-ball basketball team.  Until we get that corrected, we're going to be an up-and-down team.  This time last year, we were 8-3 and not really expected to do much in the CCIW.  We got off to a great start in January, and everything clicked.  I don't know if this team is capable of doing that.  I don't know that we're not capable, either.  The fact of life is that we have to re-group and get ourselves on a better-competitive plane.  Until we can stop people on a dribble-penetration, we're going to be a scuffling defensive team.  We're also not getting to the boards anywhere near well enough. What we've done to ourselves now is to put a premium on the conference championship.  There is very little likelihood that we're going to get an NCAA bid, but our goal right now is to compete for the league title.  I have to come up with a plan to help us win basketball games, and we don't have any time to feel sorry for ourselves." 

Carthage opens its CCIW-schedule on Wednesday, Jan. 5 against No. 27 Wheaton College (Ill., 9-2, 0-0 CCIW) in an 8 p.m. game at King Arena in Wheaton, Ill.