The Carthage College men's basketball team (3-4, 0-0 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin) opened play at the Carthage Classic II on Friday, Dec. 5 with a 73-55 loss to Hope College (2-3) at Tarble Arena in Kenosha, Wis. In the other game on Friday, No. 43 Wheaton College (Ill., 5-2) upset No. 19 Calvin College (4-3), 70-66. The tournament, formerly known as the CCIW-MIAA Challenge, concludes on Saturday, Dec. 6 with Hope taking on Wheaton (Ill.) at 1 p.m. and the Red Men playing Calvin at 3 p.m.
Carthage had an early, 13-9 lead, but Hope took over, 16-13, at 9:44 on a three-pointer by Cody Stuive. The Flying Dutchmen extended their lead to as much as 11 as the first half expired, 35-24. Hope made it a 15-point game, 48-33, at 16:10 on a layup by Alex Eidson. The Red Men whittled the margin back to seven points on three occasions, the last time at 57-50 with 10:26 to play. Hope then took off on a 13-0 run to ice the game at 70-50 with 3:28 remaining. Corey McMahon scored five of those 13 points for the flying Dutchmen, who went on to win by 18 points, 73-55.
Hope shot 49 percent (22-45), including five-of-18 three-pointers, while Carthage shot just 37 percent (20-54), including three-of-18 from three-point range. Hope really hurt Carthage at the free-throw line, converting 24-of-29, while Carthage made just 12-of-21. The flying Dutchmen out-rebounded the Red Men by a 37-26 margin.
Three Hope player scored in double figures. Brock Benson had 15 points on four-of-five field goals and seven-of-eight free throws, along with five rebounds. Harrison Blackledge scored 12 points with five boards, and Alex Eidson added 10 points.
Mike Kjeldsen (So., Bloomingdale, Ill./Lombard-Glenbard East) led the Red Men with 15 points on six-of-11 shooting.
Cameron Van Wyk (Sr., Wassenaar, Netherlands) scored 14 points with four rebounds, and
Scott McNellis (So., Downers Grove, Ill./South) came off the bench to add 10 points.
"We don't handle adversity very well," admitted coach
Bosko Djurickovic, "and it's my responsibility to make this team better. Right now, we're not a very good basketball team. Our preparation this week was good, and we got off to a good start, but in the second half, we absolutely stopped playing the game correctly. When you do that, you're going to get your butt beat, especially by good teams like Hope. We need to consistently do the little things to make a team better. We have to identify roles better than we do. It's no fun being on this end, and we have to find a way to be more competitive."
