When an expected conference championship contender starts 0-2 in league play, every game and every week must be considered of the utmost importance to fulfill that potential. With the case of the John Carroll men’s basketball team, this week is looking like a big one. The Blue Streaks — ranked No. 3 in the D3Hoops.com Top 25 Division III poll but now unranked after losing four straight when All-America point guard Luke Chicone of Mentor went down with a broken foot — can put themselves right back in the Ohio Athletic Conference title conversation with a 2-0 week. It won’t be easy. That’s because both games are against a first-place team — at least at the start of this week. On Jan. 15, JCU (9-4, 4-2 OAC) host 9-5 Heidelberg — which is in a three-way first-place tie with Mount Union and Muskingum at 5-1 — then plays at Muskingum on Jan. 18. A sweep of the week would ascend the Blue Streaks to no worse than second in the OAC at just about the halfway point of the conference season, which consists of 18 games. Coach Pete Moran’s team is red-hot, thanks to a six-game winning streak since dropping four straight. He said his group will be ready. “It’s a veteran group,” said Moran. “They understand (what’s at stake). It doesn’t need to be talked about. It’s a simple message: find it in yourself … That’s the luxury of having a veteran group.” There’s no secret to JCU’s recent success. It has rode a stifling defense that has limited opponents to 63.1 points per game during the winning streak while converting the offense from an up-tempo one to half-court. In the last five, no team has shot the ball better than 38.5% from the field vs. the Blue Streaks. That was Otterbein on Jan. 8. Against No. 10-ranked Hampden-Sydney on the road Dec. 20, it made just 32.4% of its shots. “Defensively, we had to find a way to play without Luke Chicone,” said Moran. “It’s about valuing the basketball, putting guys in a half-court setting and controlling the pace with our length and our big guys. That effort on ‘D’ has been met with a balanced attack on offense. Leading scorer Luke Frazier (Lake Catholic) has been his usual stat-stuffer games with top games of 27, 21, 18 and 17 points since mid-December. Others have emerged, most notably posts David Gentry and Will Yontek. Gentry has games of 21 and 17 points during the win streak, and Yontek scored a season-high 28 points in JCU’s last game, an 82-68 victory at Capital on Jan. 11. Mostly though, it’s been a defense-first mindset during the winning streak. That mindset likely has to continue this week because Muskingum and Heidelberg will present challenges for the JCU defense. The Muskies’ Duane Davis is OAC’s leading scorer at 20.5 points. Heidelberg has the league’s third-leading scorer in Elijah Harden (17.6 points) and the top scoring team at 85.7 points. The Student Princes also lead the OAC in 3-point shooting at 42.6%. “With Heidelberg, we’ll have our hands full,” said Moran. “… We’re not going to play up and down with these guys.” OAC honor for Willoughby Hills native JCU junior forward Carly Perusek — a Beaumont grad and Willoughby Hills native — was recently named OAC Women’s Basketball Player of the Week for the first time in her career. In two wins last week, Perusek posted two double-doubles. She had 10 points and 11 rebounds vs. Otterbein, then 12 points and a career-high 14 rebounds against Capital. It’s been quite the turnaround for Perusek. Last season, she appeared in four games and played 13 minutes the entire season but is averaging 6.5 points and 8.0 rebounds in 2024-25. OAC men’s basketball standings Heidelberg 5-1 (9-5) Mount Union 5-1 (8-5) Muskingum 5-1 (7-6) John Carroll 4-2 (9-4) Ohio Northern 3-3 (9-4) Baldwin Wallace 3-3 (7-6)