The Carthage men’s basketball team will get a chance to see how it stacks up with the big boys when it hosts the Carthage Classic today and Saturday at the Tarble Arena.

The Red Men play UW-Whitewater at 8 tonight and UW-Platteville at 7 p.m. Saturday in the round-robin event. Aurora rounds out the four-team field.

In the D3hoops.com preseason poll, Whitewater and Platteville were ranked 13th and 17th, respectively, after advancing to the second round of the NCAA Division III Tournament last season. Both are coming off 23-6 campaigns.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Carthage coach Bosko Djurickovic said. “This is good competition. We don’t play these people very often. It’s a good measuring stick because you know that they’re going to be good year in and year out.”

The event is returning after a five-year hiatus. Carthage posted a 10-0 record in the five previous Classics from 1999 to 2003.

This will be only the seventh meeting between Carthage and Whitewater and the first since Dec. 29, 1992 when the Red Men won 82-79 at the UW-Whitewater Invitational.

Whitewater’s roster includes a pair of UW-Parkside transfers — junior guard D.J. Dantzler and senior forward Mike Bendall. Dantzler averaged 9.6 points for the Rangers last season, while the 6-foot-6 Bendall was on the Warhawk roster but sat out because of injury. Dustin Mitchell, a 6-foot-9 senior, is the team’s leading-returning scorer (9.6 ppg).

“Whitewater has had some attrition through graduation, but they’re still a very talented team,” Djurickovic said. “They’re going to be big and tough on the boards.”

While the Warhawks will be playing their first game, Carthage is coming off an impressive 76-54 victory over Transylvania (Ky.) in Sunday’s season opener.

Junior All-American Steve Djurickovic led the way with 23 points, nine assists and five rebounds and freshmen forwards Tyler Pierce and Raul Guzman had solid debuts, combining for 35 points on 14-of-19 shooting and 18 rebounds.

Ranked 28th, Transylvania was the preseason No. 1 choice in the Heartland Conference and an NCAA Division III Tournament qualifier last season.

“Anybody who was at the game Sunday, and people in our program, are excited,” Bosko Djurickovic said. “I don’t know if we’re going to win two or lose two this weekend, but we’re clearly better than we have been the last four or five years.”