The Carthage College men's basketball team (1-1, 0-0 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), tied for 55th place in the “D3hoops.com” pre-season poll, lost an 82-81 thriller to No. 13 Wisconsin-Whitewater (1-0) on Friday, Nov. 20 on the first night of the Carthage Classic at Tarble Arena in Kenosha, Wis. In the earlier game, No. 17 Wisconsin-Platteville (2-0) defeated Aurora University (0-1), 86-79. On Saturday, Nov. 21, Aurora tangles with Wisconsin-Whitewater at 5 p.m., with the Red Men facing Wisconsin-Platteville at 7 p.m.

 

Carthage jumped out to an early 10-point lead, 23-13, at 13:16. Wisconsin-Whitewater took a four-point lead, 29-25, at 9:40 after four-consecutive three-pointers, three by Mike Shaw. The Red Men re-gained the lead late in the half, but the Warhawks led by three at the break, 46-43. Wisconsin-Whitewater never relinquished the lead in the second half, although Carthage did tie the contest, 62-62, at 9:23. The Warhawks led by as much as seven points on several occasions in the second period, but the Red Men almost pulled it out in the final seconds. 

 

Trailing by six, 82-76, with 28 seconds remaining, Max Cary (So., Geneva, Ill.) and Steve Djurickovic (Jr., Pleasant Prairie, Wis./Kenosha-Bradford) scored on back-to-back layups to cut the lead to two, 82-80, with 8.5 seconds to play. Djurickovic was fouled on his shot and made the free throw for an 82-81 margin. Following a Carthage timeout, the Warhawks' Dustin Mitchell was fouled but missed both free throws. Carthage's Mitch Thompson (Fr., Orland Park, Ill./Sandburg) collected the rebound. The Red Men got the ball upcourt, but Djurickovic missed an off-balance jumper at the buzzer that would have been the game-winner.

 

Carthage shot 57 percent (29-51), while Wisconsin-Whitewater shot 49 percent (28-57). The Warhawks out-rebounded the Red Men, 38-22. Steve Djurickovic scored a tournament-record 33 points on 12-of-22 field goals and nine-of-10 free throws, along with nine assists. Max Cary had 15 points, and Tyler Pierce (Fr., Westmont, Ill.) added 12 points. Dustin Mitchell topped Wisconsin-Whitewater with 28 points on nine-of-13 from the floor, 10-of-14 from the free-throw line and a whopping 18 rebounds. Mike Bendall and DJ Dantzler each had 14 points for the Warhawks. In Wisconsin-Platteville's win over Aurora, the Pioneers' Mike Shaw had 24 points on seven-of-15 three-pointers and three-of-three free throws.

“It was an exceptional college basketball game," said Carthage ccoach Bosko Djurickovic. "Wisconsin-Whitewater has a very good team, and so do we. Even though we're better this year, we still haven't remedied our free-throw situation. We also got rebounded badly, but we're not going to see a team with this much size and athleticism again this year. Having said that, we didn't do all the things that we needed to control. You can't be satisfied with losing by point. We had opportunities to win spring-board kind of game.”