MIAMI, Fla. - The Carthage College Red Men made it a perfect 2-0 in Miami on Wednesday night, as Carthage defeated the Southern Vermont College Mountaineers at Barry University, 86-63.

The win improves the Red Men to 7-4 on the season, while SVC falls to 7-3 with their second loss in Miami.

"When we play well we are a pretty darn good basketball team," said a happy Bosko Djurickovic following the win.  "We have a lot of moving parts.  We have size, which we have not had in recent years, and we do a very good job on both ends of the court.  Tonight we were pretty good from beginning to the end."

The Red Men picked up where they left off from Monday, after tying the school record with 15 blocks in the win over Washington & Lee University, Carthage recorded ten blocks in the first half alone, led by Sean Johnson with five of his own.  The freshman finished with seven blocks to tie for the third most in a game in Red Men history, while adding eight points and eight rebounds.

Carthage dominated most of the first half as well on the offensive side, as the Red Men built a 49-30 lead at the half, after shooting 56.3% on 18-32 field goals and adding 7-15 for 46.7% from deep.  The Red Men opened their lead up to as many as 21 points following a 33-16 run turned a six-point game, at 18-12, into the early makings of a blowout.  

In the second half, the Red Men opened the lead up to as many as 30 at the 8:35 mark at 77-47.  Jordan Thomas had another big second half on Wednesday, scoring 17 of his game-high 30 points over the final 20 minutes.  Thomas finished shooting, 11-15 from the floor and 8-10 from three.

Joining Thomas to lead the way for the Red Men were Brad Kruse with 15 points and seven rebounds, Brad Perry with 13 points on a perfect 6-6 from the field and three blocks, and Kamal Shasi had nine assists to lead Carthage, while scoring six points and collecting seven boards.

On the play of Perry and Johnson, the head coach said, "They are both playing very well right now.  That said, this again may have been Shasi's night.  He put up nine assists and took the roll defensively of guarding their best player.  He continues to play well.  Jordan Thomas was great."

Next up for the Red Men, Carthage will return to CCIW-play in 2018 starting with North Central College on Wednesday, January 3rd at Tarble Arena.  Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m.

"This has been a tremendous trip!" noted Bosko on the MIAHoops D3 Shootout.  "The people from Eastern University, who put this thing together, deserve great credit.  I have been on a million trips and never had one that clicked this well.  We are staying at a world-class hotel at a reasonable price.  Our buses have never been late.  They have gotten us to where we needed to be, when we needed to be there.  The officials have been solid.  This has been a great trip and we owe a great debt of gratitude to the people of Eastern because we were a little bit 'orphaned' after the hurricane in Puerto Rico.  They took us on, along with the three other teams that had planned on going.  So thank you so much to Coach at Eastern and his staff for doing just a wonderful job.  Along with that, the Berry University people, they provided the table crew and operations staff.  17 games in three days is a huge undertaking and our thanks go out to them."