The Carthage College men's basketball team (7-7, 1-2 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) fell on Saturday, Jan. 9th to Illinois Wesleyan University (8-6, 2-1 CCIW), 78-52, at the Shirk Center in Bloomington, Ill.  Carthage had a rough-shooting second half that saw the Red Men outscored, 42-23, over the final 20 minutes.
 
"This was as disappointing of a performance as we have had all year long," said men's basketball coach Bosko Djurickovic.  "I thought we had a good game plan.  We put ourselves in position early to probably take the lead and give ourselves a good chance moving forward and we did not.  Our execution on both ends of the floor against a good offensive basketball team just wasn't good enough.  Nobody feels sorry for you.  We have two of the five best teams in the country next week so we better be ready to play"
 

Carthage' Tony Pierce Jr. (Sr., Evanston, Ill./Skokie-Niles West) registered a game-high 17 points on five-of-12 shooting and four-of-10 from three-point range.  Jordon Kedrowski (Fr., Bolingbrook, Ill./Downers Grove-South) was the only other Carthage player in double figures with 10 points.
 
After a sluggish start to the game, going down 8-0 from the tip, the Red Men came alive, thanks to their ability to hit the three-point field goal.  Carthage  fought back with a pair threes from Pierce and tied the game at 15-15 nearly halfway through the first half on a Brad Kruse layup. 
 
The Red Men would shoot 46.2-percent from three-point distance in the half, led by Pierce Jr. who went 4-8 from the field for 13 points; all of which were from three.  "Tony Pierce is a very confident offensive player," said Djurickovic, "and we need to put him in places where he can succeed.  Brad Kruse plays well every night of the week.  I also thought the freshman, Jordan Kedrowski, played well given the circumstances."
 
With Carthage trailing by two with 8:19 remaining in the half, Illinois Wesleyan began dominating in the paint with eight points in a 14-9 run to close the half.  The Titans led, 36-29, at the break.  The second half saw two teams on opposite ends of the spectrum, with Carthage shooting ice cold and Illinois Wesleyan coming out on fire.  Carthage opened the half just three-for-25 from the field, while Illinois Wesleyan built a commanding 26-point lead due to a seven-for-11 shooting start from three-point range.  The Red Men would cut the Titans' lead to 19 with 5:53 remaining but it would be as close as Carthage could get, as the Titans dropped the Red Men, 78-52.
 
As a team, Carthage shot 29.5-percent from the field on 18-of-61 shooting from the field and just seven-of-29 in the second half.  After going six-of-13 in the first half from three, the Red Men only hit one-of-ten attempts in the second half.  On the second half shooting troubles Djurickovic said, "We probably missed a number of free throws in the last five minutes.  They made a bunch of three-point baskets.  We couldn't get what we wanted.  It was just a snowball that kept rolling downhill."