The Carthage College men's basketball team (2-3, 0-0 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin) opened play at the University of California-Santa Cruz "Thanksgiving Classic" on Friday, Nov. 28 with an 84-49 loss to No. 4 Washington University (Mo., 5-0) at the Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz, Calif. 

Carthage was trailing by just two points, 25-23, at 6:52 first half before Washington (Mo.) closed out the period on a 20-5 run to take a 17-point halftime lead, 45-28.  The Bears extended their margin to 27 points early in the second period, 60-33, at 14:37 and continued to pull away to a 38-point victory, 84-46.

Washington (Mo.) shot a blistering 66 percent (33-50), including 70 percent in the second half (16-23) and seven-of-12 three-pointers overall.  Carthage shot just 31 percent (16-51), including just six-of-26 from three-point range.  The Bears got to the free-throw line 18 times and made 11, while the Red Men also converted 11-of-18.  Washington (Mo.) won the rebounding battle, 35-27.

Nick Burt led the Bears with 17 points and six rebounds, while Matt Palucki had 12 points and five boards.  Reese Herth (Sr., Morton Grove, Ill./Skokie-Niles West) was the lone Carthage player in double figures with 11 points. 

"Coming out here," said Carthage coach Bosko Djurickovic. "I actually thought we had a chance to win this game.  "Give them credit—they do everything correctly.  Whatever we tried to do was just not good enough.  They play within their system so well all the way from their first guy to their 15th man.  They had 28 assists on 33 baskets—that's a tremendous job.  We have to do a better job, and we have a very interesting game tomorrow against a well-coached and a hard-nosed UC-Santa Cruz team.  If we feel sorry for ourselves, we could be heading home with an 0-2 record."  Carthage plays UC-Santa Cruz (2-3) on Saturday, Nov. 29 at 3 p.m., PST.