When the first half came to an end on Saturday night, the Carthage men’s basketball team trudged to the locker room sporting long faces.

Mind you, the Red Men were leading by seven points.

Outscored 9-0 in the final 2 minutes, 42 seconds before intermission, cold-shooting Carthage came out flat in the second half and was steamrolled by Augustana, 70-59, before a season-high crowd of 1,925 at Tarble Arena.

“We went into the locker room seven points ahead and, really, there was no feeling of that in the locker room,” Carthage coach Bosko Djurickovic said. “The guys were a little bit concerned. They knew they didn’t finish the half well. They knew the momentum was the other way.”

A tie at the top

The 23rd-ranked Red Men (16-5) had their seven-game winning streak snapped and allowed Illinois Wesleyan to join them atop the CCIW standings at 8-2. The Titans defeated Elmhurst on Saturday, 73-59. Augustana (14-7) is one game behind the co-leaders at 7-3.

Kyle Nelson, a 6-foot-9 junior, scored a game-high 24 points — 13 in the second half — on 10-of-14 shooting and grabbed 13 rebounds to lead the Vikings. Chris Anderson added 14 points off the bench. Augustana outrebounded the Red Men, 39-24.

“They got way too many on both ends,” Djurickovic said. “The system won tonight. They just were too powerful. They played with a great purpose and we weren’t able to answer. They were just better than we were tonight.”

Carthage was an icy 4-of-26 from the floor in the second half (15.4 percent) and the Red Men managed only five baskets in the final 24:27.

“You’re going to have those nights,” Carthage sophomore Max Cary said. “You just have to stay confident. If our shots aren’t falling, we have to try to look inside. We didn’t get Tyler (Pierce) as involved as we should have.”

Steve Djurickovic, who scored 44 points at Wheaton on Wednesday, finished with 21 points and nine assists, but he was bumped, jostled and harrassed by the physical Vikings in a 4-of-13 night from the floor. Cary scored 10 of his 14 points in the first 6:52 when the Red Men bolted out to a 19-10 lead.

Looking good early

The Red Men appeared as though they were going to roll to an easy victory when Mitch Thompson converted a 3-point play to increase the lead to 38-22 with 3:04 left in the first half.

That turned out to be Carthage’s last basket for seven minutes as Nelson scored five points in a 9-0 to cut the deficit to 38-31 at the break.

Carthage then missed its first six shots of the second half, but still held the lead until Anderson made back-to-back 3-pointers to tie it at 45-45 with 12:59 left.

Augie grabbed the lead for good at 50-48 on a 3-point play by Nelson with 11:29 left. The basket was a part of an 8-0 run that gave the Vikings a 53-48 lead.

The Red Men got as close as 58-57 on a pair of free throws by Djurickovic with 4:08 to play, but Nelson answered with his third “and-one” of the night as the Vikings pulled away.

“Nothing was going our way tonight,” Steve Djurickovic said. “It was a tough game for us.”