BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – The Carthage College men's basketball team fell Saturday, January 9th at Illinois Wesleyan University's Shirk Center, 78-52, after a rough shooting second half saw the Red Men outscored 42-23 final 20 minutes.
 
"This was as disappointing of a performance as we have had all year long," said men's basketball head 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"
 
The loss drops the Red Men to 7-7 overall and 1-2 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin, while Illinois Wesleyan improves to 8-6 on the year and 2-1 in the conference.
 
Tony Pierce Jr. registered a game-high 17 points on 5-of-12 shooting and 4-of-10 from three.  Jordon Kedrowski was the only other Carthage player in double figures with 10 points in the game.
 
After a sluggish start to the game, going down 8-0 from the tip, the Red Men came alive thanks in large part to their ability to hit the three-point field goal.  The Red Men fought back with a pair threes from Tony Pierce Jr., and eventually 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. 
 
Looking at Pierce Jr.'s play today Djurickovic said, "Tony scored the ball well.  He is a very confident offensive player 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, Jordon 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 during a 14-9 run to close the half and give the Titans a 36-29 lead at the half.
 
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 3-for-25 from the field, while Illinois Wesleyan built a commanding 26-point lead due to a 7-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 7-of-29 in the second half and after going 6-13 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 Bosko 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."
 
Illinois Wesleyan registered five players in double-digits, as Andy Stempel, Joel Pennington, Alec Bausch, Ryan Cole and Trevor Seibring each scored at least ten points.  Bausch led IWU with 16 points. 
 
The Red Men will return home Wednesday, January 13th for their next game, as Carthage plays host to No. 2 Elmhurst College (13-1, 3-0 CCIW) at 7 p.m. at Tarble Arena.