A hiccup on the way to a CCIW title.

That might turn out to be the best way to describe the Carthage men’s basketball team’s disappointing 70-59 loss to Augustana on Saturday night.

“Yeah, definitely,” sophomore guard Max Cary said when asked if the 23rd-ranked Red Men will bounce back. “We’ll be ready to play the next time we step on the court.”

The Red Men, who are tied with Illinois Wesleyan for first place in the CCIW at 8-2, close out the regular season by playing the bottom-four teams in the league — at Elmhurst (1-9), North Central (4-6), North Park (4-6) and at Millikin (2-8).

“I think we’ll be fine,” Carthage junior Steve Djurickovic said. “We’re a young group. We feel it’s still our conference to win. If we play as well as we have throughout the year, I think we still have a chance to win our last four.”

Going cold

Leading by 16 points with three minutes left in the first half, Carthage missed its final four shots as Augustana went on a 9-0 run to make it a seven-point game.

The Red Men then missed their first six shots of the second half and ended up going 4-of-26 in the final 20 minutes. The Red Men shot 31.5 percent in the game (17-of-54).

Malcom Kelly finished 0-for-9 from the floor, including 0-for-7 from 3-point range. Other struggling shooters were Cody Hilton (0-for-3), Raul Guzman (3-for-9) and Steve Djurickovic (4-for-13).

“They’re really a physical team,” Djurickovic said. “They crash the boards hard. We didn’t hit a lot of open shots. We didn’t get anything inside, which is my fault.”

Djurickovic honored

Djurickovic was named to the 2010 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA)/ESPN the Magazine District 5 first-team all-academic squad recent.

As a first-team member, the Bradford graduate advances to the national ballot for consideration as a CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine Academic All-American. An exercise and sports science major with a 3.49 cumulative grade-point average through the fall 2009 semester, Djurickovic was named second-team academic all-district in 2009.