By Steve Marovich, Carthage Sports Information Director
The Carthage College men's basketball team (4-3, 0-0 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) defeated No. 36 Calvin College (6-2), 74-63, on Saturday, Dec. 1 at the ninth-annual CCIW/MIAA Classic at the Wheaton College (Ill.) King Arena in Wheaton, Ill.
Carthage opened tournament play on Friday, Nov. 30 with an 82-70 loss to No. 19 Hope College (3-2), with No. 32 Wheaton (Ill., 5-0) defeating Calvin (6-1), 54-37, in the second game. On Saturday, Dec. 1, Wheaton (Ill., 6-0) defeated Hope (3-3) by a 74-70 margin.
In the win over Calvin, the Red Men opened a 10-point lead over the Knights, 24-14, at 10:02. Calvin closed the gap to one point, 29-28, at 2:25 before Carthage went back up by six, 34-28, at 1:01. The Red Men led by four points at halftime, 34-30. The Knights opened the second half with a 10-4 run that put them back on top by six, 44-38, at 16:27. Other than two ties, Calvin held the lead for the next 13 minutes until Carthage took over, for good, 61-60, at 3:19 on a layup by Tyler Pierce. The Red Men closed out the game on a 13-3 run to win by 11 points, 74-63. The win was the first this week over a ranked team following losses to Wisconsin-Whitewater and Hope, the former in the title game of the Nov. 23-24 Carthage Classic.
Carthage shot 50 percent (28-56), including seven-of-17 three-pointers, while Calvin shot 41 percent (24-59), including five-of-17 from three-point range and just 37 percent overall in the second half (11-30). Calvin had a 37-29 rebounding edge. Four Carthage players scored in double figures. Tyler Pierce (Sr., Westmont, Ill.) scored a career and game-high 23 points on seven-of-14 field goals, including two-of-four three-pointers, along with a perfect seven-of-seven free throws and a game-high 10 rebounds.
Mitch Thompson (Sr., Orland Park, Ill./Sandburg) had 15 points and three blocked shots and Luke Johnson (So., Naperville, Ill./West Chicago-Wheaton Academy) 12 points and eight rebounds. Kevin Sykes Jr. (Jr., Tinley Park, Ill./Frankfort—Lincoln-Way North) came off the bench to add 10 points on three-of-four from three-point range. Donte Logan (So., Evanston, Ill./Skokie-Niles West) dished out a career-high 10 assists. Tyler Kruis led Calvin with 18 points and nine boards, while Jordan Brink added 13 points.
"I thought we prepared well after a tough game last night against Hope," said Carthage coach Bosko Djurickovic, "We put in some stuff that I thought would work, and more importantly, the guys listened and put it into play. We got easier baskets than we've had recently. Calvin will leave this tournament not looking quite as good as they really are. They'll finish first or second in the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, and we can just hope to do the same in our league. We were good today, and we were good even after we got hit in the face a little bit. Donte Logan had a major league game with 10 assists, and he found the right people. We had 20 assists and nine turnovers, and you can't ask for anything better than that against a good team."
Carthage travels to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Friday, Dec. 7 to play Coe College (3-2) in a 7 p.m. game at Moray Eby Fieldhouse.